• by George Levin , Columnist, April 2, 2018

I don’t believe that what happened with Facebook can be considered a data breach, as no hackers were involved and there was no software vulnerability that was exploited.

This issue has nothing to do security, rather, it is all about transparency and understanding how we share our personal data. 

This situation should not affect marketers and brands confidence in using the platform moving forward. This story is less about advertising and is more about users and their education.

I think we can learn from this story because it brought the attention to the problem, which is, that people don’t really think about the possible consequences of “checking boxes.” In today’s world, we are all overwhelmed by information: 10 tabs are opened on our browsers, we are texting with our friends, and we are messaging with our colleagues simultaneously. Under these circumstances, many do not take the time to carefully read what information we are sharing with the app when we log into our Facebook accounts. 

I doubt that back in 2013, when a Cambridge University researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created his personality quiz app, the 300,000 people who installed it were curious why the app wanted to get access to their friends’ data. 

Imagine, you are in a supermarket and there is an in-store brand promotion managed by a brand’s team and authorized by the supermarket. In order to win a prize you need to fill out a form with a lot of personal information. Will you blame the supermarket for abusing your personal data? No, you will blame the brand with whom you shared your personal data. 

I think that the issue was properly addressed by Facebook. Kogan's app was banned immediately when Facebook found out that he shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica.

In 2014 before the incident Facebook limited the data apps could access, including using an individual’s friend’s data. However, we still can blame Facebook for the lack of transparency. They should be held responsible for not only protecting our data but also for educating us about what data we have already shared and which apps have access to it. This will be addressed as, Facebook will show everyone a tool at the top of the News Feed with the apps you've used and an easy way to revoke these apps' permissions to your data. Moreover, they will remove developers' access to your data if you haven't used their app within the past three months. I think it’s a great and very efficient idea.

I believe that professional community has overreacted. The focus should be not on Facebook but on the lack of education and transparency in sharing personal data. I see the only takeaway for brands. Brands have to be more accurate when buying any data for their marketing targets. They should always question the source of this data to understand how it was acquired.