Personal data of more than three million people were exposed online for four years by a personality app, called as myPersonality.
The app collected the intimate details of the Facebook users and can be accessed by anyone on the Internet.
Security researchers who designed the app are based at the Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge. They uploaded a sensitive data of Facebook users onto a poorly protected website that contains a million answers to a personality trait questionnaires.
According to information on the Cambridge website, the app "collected data from over 6 million volunteers" during the period it was active. "It created "one of the largest social science research databases in history."
"This data was anonymized and samples of it were shared with registered academic collaborators around the world through the myPersonality project, resulting in over 45 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals," said the Cambridge website.
While Facebook has confirmed that they are investigating the matter and have temporarily suspended myPersonality app. "If myPersonality refuses to cooperate or fails our audit, we will ban it," said Ime Archibong, Facebook's vice president of product partnerships.
