Facebook says Cambridge Analytica got data on up to 87 million users

Facebook has a massive data scandal on its hands, and it just got bigger.

Facebook said Wednesday that data from 87 million users, mostly in the United States, was accessed by the Trump-aligned firm Cambridge Analytica. Previous reports indicated that the number was around 50 million.

The revelation was shoved at the bottom of a wordy blog post on Facebook's plan to further restrict access to its data in the wake of this scandal. It was written by Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technology officer.

The social network also revealed it would inform affected users on Monday, April 9.

Finally, starting on Monday, April 9, we’ll show people a link at the top of their News Feed so they can see what apps they use — and the information they have shared with those apps. People will also be able to remove apps that they no longer want. As part of this process we will also tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

Unfortunately, there's not much Facebook users can do in the wake of the scandal. That data was already obtained and perhaps used by the company.

This change in scale is yet another headache for Facebook, and it's not without precedent. Late last year, Facebook said 10 million people were exposed to ads from the Russian "Internet Research Agency" during the 2016 presidential election. A month later, it revised its figure and said as many as 126 million users could have seen the ads.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify to Congress for the first time next week, speaking on the topic of data privacy. Zuckerberg is also hosting a call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.