What to do if your Facebook info was improperly accessed
Posted April 4, 2018 7:29 pm.
Last Updated April 5, 2018 6:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says fixing the company’s problems will take many years. The social media giant is struggling following word a data-mining firm improperly accessed data from millions of users to try to influence elections.
However, Zuckerberg says the issues Facebook needs to address go beyond just the privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, and they include fake news and hate speech.
Facebook has revealed that as many as 600,000 Canadians and a total of 87 million people might have had their data accessed by Cambridge. Nearly 82 per cent of that 87 million figure is believed to be people living in the US.
So, what do you do if you are included in the breach?
Evan Kelly with the Better Business Bureau says you’re within your rights to speak to the company if you find out you’re affected. “If any data breach, whether it’s Facebook or any other kind of business, you’re within your rights to talk to that business and find out what their protocol is for letting people know.”
After that, you’ll want to make some changes to your social media accounts, to ensure you’re safeguarding your privacy.
“You want to change your passwords, you want to makes sure any information you put in your profile is limited.”
He adds you don’t really have any legal rights as Kelly outlines, once you upload information to Facebook, it becomes the company’s property.
In the past, Cambridge Analytica has been accused of using crunch data that was collected without users’ authorization to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
After word of the breach surfaced last month, Canada’s privacy commissioner launched an investigation to determine whether Facebook respected the federal privacy law covering private companies.
Canada’s acting minister for democratic institutions has also said he’d be open to strengthening federal privacy laws, which don’t currently apply to political parties.
To address concerns, Facebook announced new plans Wednesday to restrict data access on the platform and to better protect users’ information.
