Facebook replies to panel queries
Firm says it shared data with 52 makers of software, devices
Facebook shared user information with 52 hardware and software makers, including some based in China, under agreements designed to make its social media platform work more effectively on mobile devices, the company said in information furnished to Congress late Friday.
The acknowledgment, which was part of more than 700 pages of replies to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is the fullest to date regarding reports that Facebook shared user data with some companies for years after it stopped doing so with most app makers. Some of the partnerships continued into this year, and some continue to this day, the documents say.
The list of those partners includes major American tech brands such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, along with South Korean tech giant Samsung and China-based companies Huawei and Alibaba. Not all of the companies are device makers; some make operating systems or other software.
“We engaged companies to build integrations for a variety of devices, operating systems and other products where we and our partners wanted to offer people a way to receive Facebook or Facebook experiences,” the company said in the documents. “These integrations were built by our partners, for our users, but approved by Facebook.”
Facebook has ended 38 of the 52 partnerships and plans to soon end seven more, the company said.
The social network has been criticized over reports that it shared detailed information on its users with a variety of outside companies. Facebook has drawn scrutiny over its relationships with Chinese device makers, particularly Huawei, which some lawmakers have alleged is too closely intertwined with the country’s government, posing even greater privacy and security risks to users.
The 747-page disclosure from Facebook came in response to about 1,200 questions posted by members of the House committee, which questioned Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in April. The replies were due by Friday, and Facebook submitted them after 10 p.m.
The wide-ranging queries grew out of allegations that Facebook had not done enough to protect user privacy when political consultancy Cambridge Analytica gained access to information of 87 million Facebook users, including 71 million Americans, in 2014.
Reports about the sharing of data with device makers caused renewed controversy because the practice continued years after Facebook began restricting access to the user information available to app makers — a move Facebook portrayed as a sign that it had grown more careful in guarding user privacy.
Before the data sharing was discontinued, Apple, for example, allowed Facebook users to download profile photos for their friends and use them in their iPhone contact lists. Some BlackBerry devices appeared to access several categories of data, including messages.
Facebook has defended the practices as helpful in making the social media platform perform properly on the hundreds of different mobile devices sold to customers worldwide.
The answers were the second batch that Facebook has submitted to Congress since Zuckerberg’s appearance before the committee. The first, of roughly 500 pages, was furnished last month to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee.
But Facebook once again left many lawmakers’ questions unanswered. It didn’t say why Facebook didn’t audit apps like the one at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, nor did it provide the names of company employees who were responsible for the lack of oversight.
Cambridge Analytica used the data it accessed from Facebook to help Republican candidates target voters with political messages based on psychological evaluations of their personalities, including personal preferences and other information shared on social media.
News reports revealing that Facebook data had been used in this way triggered an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, which is probing whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree on its privacy practices.
Under the 2011 decree with the trade commission, Facebook is required to obtain permission before sharing a user’s private information with a “third party” in a way that exceeds that user’s existing privacy settings. Facebook officials said that device makers were suppliers, not “third parties.”