Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke his silence Wednesday afternoon, days after his social media site was accused of data abuse.
In a Facebook status, Zuckerberg admitted that his company made mistakes and outlined ways he plans on fixing things.
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“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” he wrote.
The social media site has been facing international backlash since news broke that the private information of more than 50 million users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign.
While the news led officials from several countries to demand answers from Zuckerberg, Facebook executives stayed relatively mum.
In Wednesday’s statement, the billionaire businessman explained that he’s spent the past few days “working to understand what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Zuckerberg laid out a three-step plan, which he said will fix issues.
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The first step entails investigating apps that had access to “large amounts of information,” prior to 2014 privacy changes that reduced data access.
“We will ban any developer from our platform that does not agree to a thorough audit,” he wrote.
Second, Zuckerberg said he will “restrict” developers’ access to data of users who haven’t used their app for more than three months. The developers will only be able to access a profile’s name, photo and email address.
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The third change, coming in the next month, will involve Facebook offering more information to users on how they can modify settings for which apps can access information.
“I know it takes longer to fix all these issues than we’d like, but I promise you we’ll work through this and build a better service over the long term,” Zuckerberg wrote.
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While Zuckerberg has announced his plan to tackle the site’s privacy problem, he hasn’t publicly responded to concerns raised by governments around the world.
On Tuesday, he was asked to appear before a British parliament committee to answer questions on the “catastrophic failure.”
The Canadian government also announced it is launching an investigation to see if Facebook violated the Privacy Act.
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