10 people in New Zealand have downloaded the app that has exposed 63,714 people because of the Cambridge Analytica’s Data Mining Tactics. The Country’s privacy commissioner was informed by the company and was told that Facebook is trying to alert the users affected by this breach.
“For New Zealand, we estimate a total of 63,724 people may have been impacted – 10 are estimated to have downloaded the quiz app with 63,714 friends possibly impacted,” said Antonia Sanda, head of communications for Facebook in Australia and New Zealand.
John Edwards, The Privacy Commissioner of New Zeland said that he wants further information from Facebook on how the data of 63K New Zealanders was used by Cambridge Analytica.
“I think we have some real information deficits that I hope my colleagues in the UK and the US will uncover … I am not sure New Zealanders were ‘targeted’ but I think there is a level of complacency in New Zealand. And when you say we’re so far away, we’re only one click away really,” Edwards said.
The commissioner has deleted his own Facebook events after the revelations of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal and also said to his fellow New Zealanders to reset their profiles.
“I am actually quite concerned about the drip-feed of information [from Facebook]. These events occurred four years ago. There was knowledge about Cambridge Analytica targeting tactics a good two years ago, yet we are really only seeing Facebook confront this issue now,” Edwards said.
The prime minister of New Zeland said that she continued to operate her Facebook account with no additional security, she used her messenger to inform her partner Clarke Gayford that she had been elected leader of the Labour Party and that she was pregnant.
“Obviously social media in a political environment can be used for both further democratisation, but it can be used in the other direction as well,” Ardern said.
Edwards has no plan to independently investigate the privacy breaches by Cambridge Analytica in New Zealand.
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Source: The Guardian