Facebook stopped working to appropriately keep an eye on gadget makers to which it gave access to the individual information of countless its users, according to a formerly unreported disclosure the social media made to Congress last month.
The social media’s lax oversight was determined in 2013 by a personal privacy screen authorized by the federal government, however it was never ever exposed to Facebook users, the majority of whom had not offered the business approval to share their info with 3rd parties, the business stated in a letter toSen RonWyden The Oregon Democrat is a kept in mind personal privacy supporter and regular Facebook critic.
The letter (listed below) described the contracts Facebook had in location to supply a number of gadget makers with unique access to big quantities of information about the social networks giant’s users. The contracts, a few of which gone back to a minimum of 2010, were made with business such as Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL, Facebook stated in June.
Facebook eventually participated in data-sharing contracts with lots of tech business, confessing in July it continued sharing info with 61 software and hardware makers after it stated it had actually terminated the practice in May2015 The data-sharing contracts were meant to incorporate the “Facebook experience” with mobile phones, something a Facebook agent at the time called a “standard industry practice.”
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Apple, Facebook support more privacy laws
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Facebook has been under scrutiny since the revelation in March that consultancy Cambridge Analytica had misused Facebook user data in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election. Since then, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has testified in front of Congress and the European Parliament to answer questions about Facebook’s handling of user data.
The company has also been in the hot seat for not doing enough to prevent abuse from Russian trolls that posted misinformation and divisive content on the platform. The Russian activity was part of a program to meddle in the US presidential election and sow discord among voters.
Facebook’s data-sharing agreements fall under the purview of a consent decree issued by the Federal Trade Commission intended to monitor how Facebook tracks and shares data about its users.
The consent decree was borne out of a 2011 FTC complaint that accused Facebook of breaking its promise to keep its users’ data private. Facebook had assured users that third-party applications only had access to data required for them to function. But in fact, applications had access to almost all of a user’s personal information.
Under the settlement, Facebook agreed to get consent from users before sharing their data with third parties. It also required Facebook to establish a “comprehensive privacy program” and to have a third-party conduct audits every two years for the next 20 years to certify its program is effective.
During an FTC-mandated assessment of Facebook’s partnerships with Microsoft and Research in Motion in 2013, a team from PricewaterhouseCoopers found only “limited evidence” the social network had reviewed its partners’ compliance with its data use policies, Facebook’s letter to Wyden said.
“We take the FTC consent order incredibly seriously and have for years submitted to extensive assessments of our systems,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “PwC’s assessment process included an assessment of controls related to Facebook’s device integration partners. We remain strongly committed to the consent order and to protecting people’s information.”
In June, US officials raised concerns about Facebook giving Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei special access to user data, a company perennially in the crosshairs of the US government. Huawei is the world’s second-largest smartphone maker by volume, but it has struggled to make a dent in the US, partly because of security concerns expressed by the government, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Federal Communications Commission and House Intelligence Committee.Â
Facebook letter to Sen. Ron Wyden regarding partner monitoring by jonathan_skillings on Scribd
Originally published Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. PT
Updated Nov. 13 at 9 a.m. with Facebook letter to Sen. Wyden.
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