Data on most of Facebook’s 2 billion users collected, shared
Facebook says that most of its 2 billion users likely have had their personal information scraped and shared by third-party developers without their explicit permission.
This acknowledgement, which came in a Facebook blog post Wednesday, dramatically raises the stakes in a privacy controversy that has dogged the company for weeks, spurring investigations in the United States and Europe and sending the company’s stock price tumbling.
The blog post was the first time that Facebook detailed the scale of the improper data collection for Cambridge Analytica, a political data consultancy hired by President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in the past two federal election cycles.
The political consultancy gained access to Facebook information on up to 87 million users, most of them Americans, Facebook said. Cambridge Analytica obtained the data to build “psychographic” profiles that would help deliver target messages intended to shape voters’ behavior in a wide range of U.S. elections.
But in research sparked by revelations from a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower last month, Facebook determined that the problem of third-party collection of user data was far larger still and, with the company’s massive user base, likely affected a large crosssection of people in the developed world. The whistleblower pegged the number affected at 50 million.
“Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped,” the company wrote in its blog post.
Facebook announced plans Wednesday to add new restrictions to how outsiders can gain access to this data, the latest steps in a years-long process by the company to improve its damaged reputation as a steward of the personal privacy of its users.
Developers who in the past could get access to people’s relationship status, calendar events, private Facebook posts, and much more data, will now be cut off from access or be required to endure a much stricter process for obtaining the information.
Among Wednesday’s privacy changes: Facebook has added a section explaining that it collects people’s contact information if they choose to “upload, sync or import” this to the service. This could include users’ address books on their phones, as well as their call logs and text histories. The new policy says Facebook might use this data to help “you and others find people you may know.”
The previous policy did not mention call logs or text histories. Several users were surprised to learn recently that Facebook had been collecting information about whom they texted or called and for how long, though not the actual contents of text messages. It seemed to have been done without explicit consent, though Facebook says it collected such data only from Android users who specifically allowed it to do so — for instance, by agreeing to permissions when installing Facebook.
Facebook also adds clarification that local Zuckerberg laws could affect what it does with “sensitive” data on people, such as information about a user’s race or ethnicity, health, political views or even trade union membership. This and other information, the new policy states, “could be subject to special protections under the laws of your country.”
But it means the company is unlikely to apply stricter protections to countries with looser privacy laws, such as the United States. Facebook always has had regional differences in policies, and the new document makes that clearer.
WASHINGTON — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before a key House committee next week, the first of three potential hearings where Zuckerberg could face questions about Facebook’s data privacy practices.
The hearing, scheduled next Wednesday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, could result in an uncomfortable grilling from both Democrats and Republicans who feel the social-media giant is responsible for everything from fake news to online extremism. A spokesman for Facebook did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The catalyst for the hearings is how Facebook information was obtained by Cambridge Analytica, a data firm hired by Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Years earlier, Cambridge Analytica improperly appeared to access the names, the “likes” and other personal information from at least 30 million Facebook users, according to Christopher Wylie, a former employee turned whistleblower.
The revelations have touched off a string of investigations around the world, including the United States, where the Federal Trade Commission is probing Facebook over its privacy practices, and could potentially penalize the company with fines reaching into the millions of dollars.