Twitter fined over targeted advertising privacy breach

TWITTER has settled a $150m (£119m) regulatory lawsuit over claims it harvested 140m users’ phone numbers for a security feature only to secretly use them for targeting adverts instead.

The US Federal Trade Commission described the move as a “digital baitand-switch” and said Twitter had breached a 2011 promise it made after previous incidents.

The security feature, known as multifactor authentication, let Twitter send text messages to users who logged in from unusual locations.

Those messages contain a unique code for the user to enter into the website along with the password, helping prove a particular Twitter account is being used by its rightful owner.

The FTC added in a blog post: “If you’re struck by the irony of a company exploiting consumers’ privacy concerns in a way that facilitated further invasions of consumers’ privacy, it’s an irony not lost on the FTC.”

US Department of Justice lawyer Vanita Gupta said in a statement: “The $150m penalty reflects the seriousness of the allegations against Twitter, and the substantial new compliance measures to be imposed.” Twitter said its practice of using phone numbers for advertising purposes instead of security ceased in 2019.

Chief privacy officer Damien Kieran said: “Keeping data secure and respecting privacy is something we take extremely seriously.”

The $150m settlement is the equivalent of 3pc of Twitter’s 2021 revenue of $5.1bn.

Although a judge needs to sign off on the settlement, the FTC said it bans Twitter from using account security information for commercial purposes, as well as forcing the social media site to provide security options “that don’t require people to provide a phone number”.

Facebook settled a similar lawsuit in the US in 2019, having been caught using contact details provided for account security to target adverts at its users.

Phone numbers, email addresses and other personally identifiable information is used by advertising companies to help profile and identify consumers online.

This week, the Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into Google, saying the search engine giant may be abusing its dominance of the advertising technology market.