Facebook has refused to compensate European users who were caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The social network admitted that the incident, in which the personal information of 87 million people was harvested and sold to a political campaign agency, was “clearly a breach of trust”. However, as no bank account details, credit card information or national ID numbers were shared it felt that it did not need to reimburse users for any harm caused.

Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly apologised for an "oversight" which granted app developer Aleksandr Kogan access to millions of users' personal information by creating a personality quiz app that mined not only the information of those who installed it, but of their friends too. Facebook said it has since identified 200 other apps which may have been used in the same way, and is currently investigating.

Yet in a written response to a question raised during Tuesday's brief appearance in front of European Parliament, Mr Zuckerberg appeared to talk down the severity of the matter, blaming users for allowing Kogan's app permission to harvest their data.

“Most people gave the app at issue here access to information like their public profile as well as their page likes, friend list and birthday,” Facebook said. “It was the same for friends whose settings allowed sharing”.