Earlier this year and in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that a host of apps prior to the company’s policy reforms in 2014 had access to users’ data.
He promised in a March 2018 post that the company will investigate these apps, and ban those that do not play nice with users’ data.
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Today, the firm gave the internet an update on this audit currently underway.
“The investigation process is in full swing, and it has two phases,” revealed Ime Archibong, the company’s VP of product partnerships.
“First, a comprehensive review to identify every app that had access to this amount of Facebook data. And second, where we have concerns, we will conduct interviews, make requests for information (RFI) — which ask a series of detailed questions about the app and the data it has access to — and perform audits that may include on-site inspections.”
According to Archibong, “thousands of apps” have been investigated, while “around 200” have been suspended.
And as for future apps found to violate Facebook’s terms, the firm “will ban them and notify people via this website“.
“It will show people if they or their friends installed an app that misused data before 2015 — just as we did for Cambridge Analytica,” Archibong continued.
“There is a lot more work to be done to find all the apps that may have misused people’s Facebook data — and it will take time. We are investing heavily to make sure this investigation is as thorough and timely as possible,” he concluded.
Archibong promised more updates as the investigation progresses.
Feature image: Facebook
