TRUMP’S LEGAL TEAM REMAINS IN DISARRAY Facebook questioned about collecting Android data
Washington — In the latest sign of disarray in President Trump’s legal team, a lawyer who he said last week would come on board to help handle his response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation will no longer be part of the effort. The development came three days after John Dowd, who had been Trump’s top attorney handling the Russia inquiry, resigned amid strategy disputes with the president. Joseph diGenova, the lawyer Trump wanted to replace Dowd, has often stridently defended the president on Fox News Channel. But in a statement Sunday, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said both diGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, who is also a lawyer, would not be working on the Russia probe because clients they were already representing in connection with the investigation posed conflicts of interest.
On the same day Facebook bought ads in U.S. and British newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media site faced new questions about collecting phone numbers and text messages from Android devices.
The website Ars Technica reported that users who checked data gathered by Facebook on them found that it had years of contact names, telephone numbers, call lengths and text messages.
Facebook said Sunday the information is uploaded to secure servers and comes only from Android users who opt-in to allow it. Spokeswomen say the data is not sold or shared with users’ friends or outside apps. They say the data is used “to improve people’s experience across Facebook” by helping to connect with others.
The company also says in a website posting that it does not collect the content of text messages or calls. A spokeswoman told the Associated Press that Facebook uses the information to rank contacts in Messenger so they are easier to find, and to suggest people to call.
Users get the option to allow data collection when they sign up for Messenger or Facebook Lite, the Facebook posting said. “If you chose to turn this feature on, we will begin to continuously log this information,” the posting said.
The data collection can be turned off in a user’s settings, and all previously collected call and text history shared on the app will be deleted, Facebook said.
The feature was first introduced on Facebook Messenger in 2015 and added later on Facebook Lite.
Messages were left Sunday seeking comment about security from Google officials, who make the Android operating system.
Reports of the data collection came as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took out ads in multiple U.S. and British Sunday newspapers to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The ads say the social media platform doesn’t deserve to hold personal information if it can’t protect it.
According to the ads, a quiz app built by a Cambridge University researcher leaked Facebook data of millions of people four years ago.