You must have heard that Facebook is encountering extreme inspection of its data practices. In fact, a data firm Cambridge Analytica indecorously attained access to the confidential information of more than 50 million Facebook users.
This is a very critical issue and it has adversely impacted Facebook’s stock price. It continues to decrease. In fact, Facebook lost more than $70 billion within only ten days. Some shareholders are taking legal actions against the company for the fraud. This has made the founder of other tech companies to observe this situation closely.
In fact, this latest Facebook’s data privacy scandal teaches lessons to all companies, irrespective of the degree to which they use social media.
Here are 5 lessons that companies can learn from Facebook’s data privacy scandal.
1. Late Reactions To Wrongdoing Make Things Worse
One of the most prevalent fears that public had regarding Facebook’s data privacy matter is the fact that it was aware of this situation from the past two years. However, no measures were taken to protect user’s confidential information.
Accusations whirled, then, that Facebook would have preferably liked to have kept the issue hidden for good but lost that battle.
According to Zuckerberg, they have been working to see what exactly happened with Cambridge Analytica and take steps to guarantee that this does not happen again. They took significant steps to prevent this occurring at least four years ago.
Therefore it is important to keep in mind that rapid and critical actions taken by companies at mistake upsurge public confidence, particularly since the old saying goes that the reality always comes out.
2. Third-Party Monitoring Is Indispensable
Basically, Cambridge Analytica gained access to the user’s confidential data via an app that had a fun personality quiz. The problem started arising when people who did not use the app had their data compromised. The app collected information through app users of their friends.
Those examining Facebook’s confidentiality problem soon understood the social media site does not take sufficient measures to find out what happened to data once it extended an external entity like Cambridge Analytica.
In a post that was visible on his profile, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg admitted he was not certain how this ignominy occurred. However, it was after five days the news broke out.
The company stopped short of calling the event an information fissure, nonetheless noted it was not sure what information Cambridge Analytica retrieved as a result of its app.
Those information gaps specify that Facebook does not sufficiently monitor the data given to third-party companies.
Therefore, if you want to gain customer’s trust, you must keep up that practice a guarantee that the data gathered from social media sites is not misused anywhere else.
3. Attaining Evidence Is an Essential Step in Data Removal Measures
Facebook was actually aware of the fact that Aleksandr Kogan, the person who created Cambridge Analytica desecrated its policies. However, it did not ban the company or that person at large until this year.
Even worse, Facebook had requested Cambridge Analytica to abolish the information it had nonetheless recently heard claims that the company did not do as it had pledged. Kogan considers he did not do anything immoral, saying Facebook doesn’t have a compulsory developer policy.
This shows that Facebook did not do sufficient to guarantee Cambridge Analytica got freed from the data. It asked nothing more than a verbal confirmation and doesn’t give a company at mistake adequate motivation to fulfill demands.
Companies endangered to forthcoming privacy issues regarding illegal data controlled by third-party must learn from Facebook’s blunder. This can be done by demanding some form of certifiable evidence that validates the necessary action has occurred.
In addition, they must let third-party organizations see they will be quickly checked for not doing as instructed.
4. User Privacy Must Be Of A Primary Concern From The Very Beginning
In late March, Facebook reformed its confidentiality settings to make them easier to understand and access.
In addition to this, the site provides an access to your information section that permits people to view data regarding themselves housed on the site. It offers users the choice of removing the material there. However, it does not mention if it is deleted from Facebook’s servers or just confiscates it from what the end user view.
It is vital for other companies to see Facebook’s example and understand the responsive method is least desirable. Would Facebook have focused on privacy if the indignity had not happened? Undoubtedly not.
Preferably, businesses should always demonstrate, via actions and words, that for them consumer privacy is a rule, not a reaction planned to calm the criticism.
This demonstrates that setting up preliminary accessible and all-encompassing privacy rules. As things transform, businesses must upgrade privacy policies and bring it to people’s attention to what’s transformed since the last version.
5. Gathering Data From Nonusers Could Be Excessively Dangerous
As a way of displaying their disapproval for how Facebook failed to protect their data, many users cursed off the site and deleted their profiles.
On the other hand, when Zuckerberg appeared in front of U.S. lawmakers, he revealed that Facebook even gathers data from nonusers, implying that stopping interactions with Facebook is not an assured method to keep one’s data safe.
Zuckerberg declared that Facebook utilized the data from nonusers to warn people from malevolent purposes from stealing freely available content, for example, profile names. Majority of the people know they are giving up some privacy by utilizing the internet.
Conversely, companies have an obligation to be apparent regarding the data-collection practices for nonusers. After Zuckerberg’s admission, people said that his statement was very vague.
This teaches other companies to be aware of the fact that this practice as more damaging than beneficial if other companies extract data from individuals not using their sites.
