People from all over the world, from almost every country, is well aware of Facebook. All these users are continuously sharing their photos, videos, opinion and ideas to the world through Facebook. Facebook, being the most popular social media platform across the world has been linked to other social media platforms as well. If a person is connecting his facebook account with his Instagram account, the photos that are shared on Instagram can also be viewed on Facebook. Now that Facebook is using the data from different other social media platform, the data of the users are getting leaked. Data of almost three million users got leaked and this has exposed the personal details of the users. According to the analysts, these numbers may increase. This is because Facebook is still in the early stage of the investigation. Facebook is investigating thousands of apps to stop the data to be leaked out further. According to Facebook if they find any app misusing any of the data, they will immediately ban the same from any type collaboration with Facebook.
So, how did it start?
From the very beginning, since Facebook had started its journey as a social media platform, Facebook has been using personal details of the users. For example, when a person wants to sign in to Facebook and wants to open an account, he has to provide with his name, email id, phone number, date of birth, job status, profile picture and many more. However, it is not compulsory to provide all the details. It’s only that the name, email id, the phone number is compulsory to provide. If anyone wants he can keep his profile picture, date of birth, job status as a secret. But in most of the cases, it has been seen that most of the users give out all their personal details on Facebook, even if that is not mandatory. Thus many of the details of the users leak because of the negligence of the users.
Other possible ways for which the data leaked
Over the last few months, Facebook had been conducting a survey among the users. For this survey, the users have to answer few questions. On basis of these answers, the personality of the user is being judged. Students of the University of Cambridge had provided these answers to the researchers. However, when the answers were provided to the researchers, there were no proper security measures. Thus all the personal data of the users were leaked to the world. Highly sensitive personal details of the users, such as the psychological test results, personal information like email id, phone number, age and many more got revealed.
Steps were taken by Facebook to stop the data to be leaked
Facebook has stopped the “myPersonality” app from the platform. According to Facebook, the “myPersonality” app has violated the contract or not to make any information public. Thus to avoid the risk of the data to be leaked, Facebook has suspended the “myPersonality” app. Facebook has also removed all the data of the users so that in no way these data are leaked.
What is “myPersonality” app?
The “myPersonality” app was not only used for an academic purpose to make researches about different types of personalities, this was also used for business purpose as well. Different companies have used the information provided by the users to conduct the survey. This helped the companies to know the users and about their choice, likes and dislikes. People associated with the University of Cambridge are to be held responsible for disclosing all the data of the users. This is an act of violation of the contract.
Credits: China Daily
Our Take?
We suggest that whenever you share any information on the social media platform, one must be conscious enough so that no personal data is being given out.
Comments:
It is always better not to share any personal details on social media. All the information must be made visible only to the friends and not to the public.
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