Instead of a bunch of “likes” on her virtual wedding album, newlywed Jessica Simpson opened up her Facebook page Tuesday to find out her personal data was likely scraped by Cambridge Analytica.

“I opened the Facebook app this morning while I was waiting for my smoothie to blend,” said the Etobicoke resident who got married on the weekend. “There was a notification at the top of the app that said my data may have been improperly shared.”

The alert appeared briefly on her Facebook news feed but people can also check their help centre page.

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“I feel manipulated. It’s not right,” she said.

Simpson is among the potential 622,161 Canadians — and one of 87 million people, mostly in the U.S. — that Facebook says had their information improperly collected by the U.K.-based firm that is accused of building detailed voter profiles for political campaigns. Cambridge Analytica has reported links to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum.

The data was harvested using a personality quiz app accessed by about 300,000 users, but it also collected information about their social network and friends who didn’t install the app directly, gaining access to tens of millions of connections. Simpson is likely one of them.

“My Facebook feed always has someone’s quiz results or game scores ... I was never worried because I didn’t think someone else’s Facebook habits would affect me,” Simpson said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg batted away often-aggressive questioning Tuesday from lawmakers who accused him of failing to protect the personal information of millions of Americans. (The Associated Press)

That means Cambridge Analytica could have gleaned, without Simpson’s express permission or knowledge, her public profile, photos, current city, location “check-ins,” birthday, “likes,” as well as the posts and messages shared with the connection that authorized the app in the first place.

Simpson, who works as an event and fundraising specialist at a non-profit, uses the platform mostly to connect with friends and family, so she’s not exactly keen on joining the #DeleteFacebook trend.

“I’m online everyday. Most of my family lives outside of the Greater Toronto Area so it’s a great way for all of us to stay connected and update each other on our lives,” she said, and added that, “I’ll definitely be hesitant about who I accept as a friend.”

Facebook can’t say for sure how many people may have been swept up in the data breach scandal in part because people’s social networks may have changed since the company made changes to privacy settings for third-party apps in 2014 and banned the quiz app itself in 2015.

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The platform has rolled out several measures in recent weeks aimed at protecting personal data, shedding light on shady political advertising and combating the proliferation of misinformation.

Cambridge Analytica has denied using improperly obtained information in the American election.

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg is facing tough questions from U.S. Congress in back-to-back hearings about how the platform handles users’ privacy, hate speech, misinformation and its role in enabling foreign meddling in elections. Facebook is also facing parliamentary probes in Canada and the U.K.

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