The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Facebook, Chinese firms had data deals
Facebook said it had data-sharing partnerships with four Chinese consumer-device makers, including Huawei Technologies, escalating concerns that the social network has consistently failed to tell users how their personal information flows beyond Facebook.
The disclosure came after Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said earlier Tuesday that he saw “a serious danger” that Facebook shared user information with Chinese device makers. Facebook said it was careful about the partnerships, which were designed to help smartphone makers build custom versions of Facebook’s app. Still, the confirmation is likely to heighten scrutiny of the company’s privacy practices if the deals weren’t explicitly disclosed to users.
“Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO and TCL were controlled from the get go — and we approved the Facebook experiences these companies built,” Francisco Varela, the company’s vice president of mobile partnerships, said in a statement. “Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers.”
Huawei said in an emailed statement that it never collected or stored Facebook user data but had worked in the past with the social media company to make services “more convenient for users.”
Facebook has been responding to a global backlash about how it handles users’ data, from lawmakers and privacy advocates in the U.S. and Europe.
Then, the New York Times reported Sunday that the company had for years allowed deals with about 60 phone and device manufacturers, giving them access to vast amounts of information on users and their friends. It’s not clear yet whether any of the partners abused the data or transferred it to unauthorized parties. Still, the disclosure adds fuel to public distrust of the social network, whose main app has more than 2 billion users worldwide, and which owns other popular programs like Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. If users weren’t aware of device makers’ access, the deals could violate a 2011 Federal Trade Commission consent decree. The confirmation that Chinese device makers, especially Huawei, were among the manufacturers with access to user data raised even more questions among U.S. lawmakers about how the information was stored and used.