Greg's Corner

Facebook exposes millions of users’ data…again

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A personality quiz on Facebook compiled data from at least 6 million users and at least half of those users had their personal data exposed. Much like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, this data was freely available for four years before Facebook finally banned the app.

New Scientist reports that an app called myPersonality was distributed by the University of Cambridge for an academic project. The problem was that the information collected was distributed to researchers on a website that was not very secure. It seems that a username and password for the website was could be found publicly by doing a web search. From there, anyone could steal the information which included the names of the quiz participants.

Those in tech circles are known for calling on Facebook to tighten its security protocol, however, normal users of the platform really don’t have those concerns. In too many instances Facebook users are willing to sacrifice their own privacy for the sake of convenience, entertainment, or just plain boredom. While no major damage has been done from Facebook’s data breaches, it’s only a matter of time before so much data is lost that it causes the average Facebook user to stand up and take notice. If Facebook is not going to protect our data, maybe it’s time we stopped giving Facebook all of our information.