Facebook users do not have to wait to be notified that their data was shared with Cambridge Analytica – a tool on the social network enables users to quickly find out for themselves.
The social media giant has started to roll out alerts to users, but the process is expected to take several days to complete.
However, users can confirm for themselves if their personal information was harvested by the political research firm by visiting the Facebook Help Centre.
Here’s how to access it:
– Having ensured you’re logged into Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/help.
– In the search bar at the top of the screen, enter the word ‘cambridge’.
– Select the top search result, which is entitled ‘How can I tell if my information was shared with Cambridge Analytica?’.
– On the page that loads, a box entitled ‘Was my information shared?’ will appear. This will confirm whether or not your personal data was accessed by the firm, and will detail what information the company may have obtained.
– The page also contains a link to user Facebook settings, where users can review and update the information they share with apps and websites linked to Facebook.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here