Facebook Expands Bug Bounty Program for Data Mining Apps
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This announcement comes in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook has been embroiled in data-privacy scandal recently and now the social media giant is looking for new ways to atone for its sins.
While Mark Zuckerberg will be busy answering to Congress, Facebook wants its security researchers and anyone else with the right skills to find and report any third-party apps that are mining or abusing Facebook user data, CNET reports. In exchange, they will receive a cash payment.
Facebook already has an official "bug bounty" program, designed to locate security vulnerabilities on the Facebook website itself. This new bounty is intended to be an extension of that effort.
"Facebook's bug bounty program will expand so that people can also report to us if they find misuses of data by app developers," said Ime Archibong, Facebook's vice president of product partnerships. "We are beginning work on this and will have more details as we finalize the program updates in the coming weeks."
Bug bounty programs are an increasingly popular tactic for companies and government agencies. The U.S. Air Force has launched one and so will the State Department.