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Facebook took years to clamp down on data harvesting: Former staffer

Facebook turned off the friend permissions feature in 2015

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Reuters London
A former Facebook operations manager told a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday that data harvesting of member profiles by outside software developers was once routine and that the company took years to clamp down on the practice.

Sandy Parakilas, who was in charge of policing Facebook’s data handling procedures in 2011 and 2012, shed fresh light on business practices that are alleged to have enabled Cambridge Analytica to gain unauthorized access to the personal data of tens of millions of US voters.

The social networking giant has been rocked this week after a whistleblower said Cambridge Analytica, which US President Donald Trump

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