The data of millions of Facebook users who used the popular  "myPersonality"  application, including their answers to intimate question, remained exposed and accessible to everyone on the Web.

The University of Cambridge distributed the data from the puzzle app to hundreds of researchers through the Web site without adequate security instructions, leaving them easy to access illegally for four years.This is very private information that reveals personal information of Facebook users such as psychological testing results. The information was supposed to be confidential but insufficient precautions were taken and user information was easy to recover.Facebook suspended "myPersonality" on April 7 and said that the app violated its policies by describing how to store information in the app and on the site.More than six million people performed the tests on "myPersonality" and about half agreed to share data such as age, gender, relationship information, statuses, and more from their Facebook profile with the project. All information was collected and user names removed before being uploaded to the site for use by the researchers. The terms of use allow the "myPersonality" Team to use and share the information "anonymously so that the information can not be attributed back to the private user." 

"myPersonality" was not just an academic project. Investigators from commercial companies were also allowed to access the data as long as they agreed to follow a strict procedure for protecting the information and did not directly benefit from it. In order to access the full data, the researchers were required to register as collaborators in the project. 

More than 280 people from almost 150 institutions have done so, including researchers at universities and companies like Facebook , Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.But for those who were not entitled to access, such as people without a regular academic contract, it was easy to get around the problem by using an active username and password that was available in a simple web search and anyone who wanted to access the data could find the username and password and download the material in less than a minute.The data was controlled by David Stillwell and Michal Kosinski at Cambridge University's Psychometric Center and Alex Kogan of Cambridge Analytics who previously belonged to the project.

They actually sold access to a tool that allows targeting ads based on personality types built on the basis of collected data. What was described as "the reader of public opinion"Facebook began investigating "MyPersonality" as part of a broader investigation of applications that used its platform. It began with claims about access to information from another application by Cambridge Analytics.Today, Facebook announced that it has suspended about 200 applications as part of its investigation of applications that have accessed extensive user information. "We are now examining the application and if they refuse to cooperate with us, we will block them," the vice president of product partnerships said on Facebook.The application site has been removed, important that Twitter has been closed and no access to this information is currently available.

Cambridge University says that the application was created by Steewell before joining the university and he did not get their approval, the University of Cambridge does not own and does not control the application or data.In response to our inquiry, Stilwell said that during the nine years of the project there was only one loophole, and that the researchers who had access to the data had undertaken not to take action to discover users. "We believe that academic studies benefit from a controlled sharing of anonymous data among the research community." He also claims that it is a bit strange that Facebook, which is aware of his project and met with its partners since 2011, claims to have known nothing about the project and the security breach. 

read more on: http://saymetech.com/new-facebook-data-leak-exposed-intimate-details-3m-users/

Source:pexels.com

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