Social networking company, Facebook says it has suspended about 200 apps on its platform as part of an investigation into misuse of the data of private users, adding that the apps will be banned if eventually found culpable.
The investigation was launched after revelations that political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica hijacked data on some 87 million Facebook users as it worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The revelations over Cambridge Analytica have prompted investigations on both sides of the Atlantic and led Facebook to tighten its policies on how personal data is shared and accessed.
The 200 applications Facebook said it suspended reportedly included one called myPersonality that collected psychological information shared by millions of members of the social network who voluntarily took “psychometric” tests.
A statement issued online on Monday by Facebook’s product partnerships vice president, Ime Archibong reads, “The investigation process is in full swing.
“We have large teams of internal and external experts working hard to investigate these apps as quickly as possible. To date thousands of apps have been investigated and around 200 have been suspended — pending a thorough investigation into whether they did in fact misuse any data.”
Archibong added that, “where we find evidence that these or other apps did misuse data, we will ban them and notify people via this website.”
“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,” he said.
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