Under fire for the Cambridge Analytica data breach issue, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday said that Facebook has put up various security measures in place to prevent data abuse. Fielding aggressive questions from US lawmakers, Mark Zuckerberg said that he takes complete responsibility for the fiasco. Mark Zuckerberg said, “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.” In a post released earlier this month, Facebook said that over 87 million accounts’ data may have been shared with Cambridge Analytica. We take a closer look at the changes made by Facebook, and what users will no longer be able to do.
No longer use phone number and email to search other people
“Two weeks ago, we found out that a feature that lets you look someone up by their phone number and email was abused. This feature is useful in cases where people have the same name, but it was abused to link people’s public Facebook information to a phone number they already had,” Mark Zuckerberg said adding that after Facebook learnt of its abuse, the feature was discontinued.
Restricted sharing of other people’s information
Mark Zuckerberg said that while users can share public information easily, anything that might also share other people’s information, like other posts in groups users are part of, or other people going to same events- will be much more restricted.
Give lesser information to other apps
In his response Mark Zuckerberg highlighted that developers’ will no longer be able to access user data, if they have not used the app in the last three months. Further, in a bid to tighten security, users will now have to provide only access to name, profile photo and email address. “That’s a lot less than apps can get on any other major app platform,” Mark Zuckerberg said.
Developers’ to get limited access to your posts and private information
Developers will now have to get approval and also to sign a contract that imposes strict requirements in order to ask users for access to their posts or other private data, Mark Zuckerberg said. All these steps will limit the information users can share, which will in turn help to prevent abuse.
