Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal is actually way worse

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - Facebook's privacy scandal is much worse than previously thought—by millions of more users.

Data on as many as 87 million people, mostly in the United States, may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a data-mining company linked to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, according to a post by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technology officer.

That staggering number is up from the 50 million previously cited in prior news reports.

Facebook said it does "not know precisely what data... [was] shared... or exactly how many people were impacted." The 87 million figure is Facebook's "best estimate" of the number of accounts that installed an app that collected the data.

Facebook admitted that it did not have adequate protections in place. In Wednesday's post, titled An Update on Our Plans to Restrict Data Access on Facebook, the company outlined several changes.

"Overall, we believe these changes will better protect people’s information while still enabling developers to create useful experiences," Schroepfer wrote. "We know we have more work to do—and we’ll keep you updated as we make more changes.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted a conference call with reporters in which he called the debacle his "mistake."

Zuckerberg is expected to testify before a U.S. House panel on April 11 on the company's data policies.

Just hours before this latest revelation, Facebook posted revised terms of service and data policy that it said are "easier to read" to "show people in black and white how our products work."