The former Cambridge Analytica employee who exposed the company's misuse of data from the Facebook accounts of 87 million people early last year has warned the incident is the tip of the iceberg.

Key points: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie says last year's data misuse was just the tip of the iceberg

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie says last year's data misuse was just the tip of the iceberg He says individual countries aren't powerful enough to protect individuals' data from tech giants

He says individual countries aren't powerful enough to protect individuals' data from tech giants The technology sector should be the same as other sectors where consumer rights and safety come first

"Although the most amount of attention went to what happened in the United States and in Brexit, Cambridge Analytica and its predecessor, SCL Group, worked in countries around the world, particularly in the developing world, to manipulate elections for their clients. So it was global," Christopher Wylie told 7.30.

"It was more global than I think people sort of realised."

Cambridge Analytica used the data to influence not only the 2016 US presidential election of Donald Trump, but also the Brexit Leave vote in the United Kingdom.

Mr Wylie wants people to understand the risks of social media and data manipulation.

"It is a potential risk in terms of undermining some of the political discourse ... particularly when it comes to manipulation, disinformation and propaganda," he said.

"It is a problem, but I don't think we should simply accept that it's just a new feature. We should be challenging and reforming our legislation around the world to actually combat hostile actors, whether they're domestic or foreign."

One year on, has anything changed?

Headlines after Christopher Wylie exposed data manipulation. ( ABC News )

It has been over a year since Mr Wylie blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica, but he says little has changed and we should remain cautious about our online data.

"To be frank, I'm disappointed in a lot of regulatory authorities," he said.

"Not because they are not trying ... it's just that they didn't actually have that many powers."

He thinks that most countries are just not equipped to handle complex data crime.

"There are not sufficient regulatory frameworks to handle the amount of power that companies like Facebook have, particularly in the United States," he said.

Despite the lack of regulation in place to protect consumers, Mr Wylie said he was hopeful people would start looking at the technology sector in the same way other sectors were viewed — "where safety and consumer rights come first".

Should we be worried about our data?

Our online data is becoming more and more valuable. ( ABC News )

Data is one of the biggest commodities of our digital age.

As we live more of our lives online, the quantity of that data and its value only increases.

Facebook said more than 300,000 Australians may have had their data "improperly used" in the Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal.

But these aren't the only companies guilty of not protecting people's data.

In June last year, the ABC exposed Australia's biggest medical appointment booking app, HealthEngine, for sharing people's personal information with a law firm seeking clients for personal injury claims.

"Patients were misled into thinking their information would stay with HealthEngine but, instead, their information was sold off to insurance brokers," said ACCC chairman Rod Sims.

Mr Wylie warns that in the next five to 20 years we could have even bigger problems, as we become more reliant on technology in our daily lives.

"If you look at how much information you put out, even just on your phone, on Facebook, on Google, whatever, you essentially create a clone of yourself online," he said.

"And that's at the disposal of these large American tech companies."

He said there were new, artificial intelligence enabled devices coming onto the market, such as Amazon's Alexa, that observed every aspect of our lives.

"When we start to augment our environment with thinking machines that make decisions about us, that make decisions for us, right, there's a real risk that we start to lose and erode the fundamental agency that makes us free," he said.

"It's not just about elections and it's not just about privacy, but how we interact with the world and who gets to decide what you see and what you don't see, and what you can access and what you can't access."

And he poses the question: when you have huge companies like Facebook controlling our data, how do we know they are "going to do the right thing" as they become "more and more powerful"?

"Let's think about this, because there's some real consequences if we get this wrong," he said.

On being a whistleblower

Chris Wylie exposed manipulation of Facebook account data by Cambridge Analytica in 2018. ( ABC News )

Unlike many whistleblowers, Mr Wylie was lucky to have plenty of support when he decided to come forward.

"When you go up against a large company, and you're just one person, you don't have a lot of resources at your disposal," he said.

"I am a very rare example of a whistleblower who has come through a very visible process of whistleblowing and come through it OK.

When Facebook found out what he was doing they "sent legal letters" and "threatened The Guardian, even though they knew the story was true".

"If I had succumbed to the very real pressure that Facebook put on me, the story wouldn't have come out," he said.



Christopher Wylie is appearing at the Sydney Opera House's Antidote Festival in September.