How to check if your data was leaked to Cambridge Analytica

ByCraig Haley

Facebook is now letting its users know if they were among the millions of users who had their data shared with a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica.

In 2015, a Facebook app “This Is Your Digital Life” created by a university professor managed to collect the information of over 270,000 users. It also managed to obtain information on the friends of those users too, meaning in total the app obtained information on many millions of Facebook users. Our post on the incident is here.

In 2015, Facebook stopped apps obtaining information on the friends of users who install them. But this was too late, and the information of millions of users had already been harvested by the “This Is Your Digital Life” app – information which was later given to Cambridge Analytica.


Sponsored Content. Continued below...




Now in the aftermath, Facebook is letting users know if they’ve been affected. Basically, this means Facebook will let you know if you or your friends installed the “This Is Your Digital Life” app. You can check by clicking this link here.

Facebook has stated that it will continue to redesign their website to make it clearer and easier to see what information Facebook apps can obtain about you, and has said it plans to prevent Facebook apps from obtaining information about you if you’ve not used them for over 3 months.

Were you affected? Let us know.

Continued below...


Thanks for reading, we hope this article helped, but before you leave us for greener pastures, please help us out.

We're hoping to be totally ad-free by 2025 - after all, no one likes online adverts, and all they do is get in the way and slow everything down. But of course we still have fees and costs to pay, so please, please consider becoming a Facebook supporter! It costs only 0.99p (~$1.30) a month (you can stop at any time) and ensures we can still keep posting Cybersecurity themed content to help keep our communities safe and scam-free. You can subscribe here

Remember, we're active on social media - so follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram and X