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Cambridge Analytica: find out if your Facebook data was shared

Another day, another update on the data harvesting scandal that allowed Cambridge Analytica access to reported 87 million users’ information.

Trust in Facebook is at an all-time low, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg currently giving testimony in Congress, but the company is at least starting to make changes. For those worried about how this scandal may have affected them, good news: it’s now incredibly easy to find out whether or not your data has been compromised by Cambridge Analytica, thanks to a new tool direct from Facebook.

87 million is a lot of people, but in the face of Facebook’s total user count, it’s actually pretty unlikely that you’ve been affected by this particular data harvest. However, it’s always better to know for sure! A bogus quiz app from 2014 entitled “This Is Your Digital Life” is responsible for taking user data and selling it on to Cambridge Analytica, and only users who engaged with the quiz (or were friends with somebody who did) were affected.

Here’s how to find out if you’re in that group.

Using the Facebook app

1. Open Facebook and tap the menu button (three lines) in the bottom right of the app

2. Scroll all the way down and press Help and Support, followed by Help Center

3. Type “Cambridge” into the search box at the top of the screen and hit Search

4. From the search results, tap How can I tell if my information was shared with Cambridge Analytica?

5. Read this page to find out whether you or any of your friends logged into “This Is Your Digital Life”

Hopefully you’ll see a screen like this!

Using Safari

1. Press here to open Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica help page in Safari

2. If you’re not already logged in, tap Log in and enter your username and password

3. Read this page to find out whether you or any of your friends logged into “This Is Your Digital Life”