Facebook seems to be under yet another controversy regarding sharing users’ data. As per a confidential Facebook document, the social networking giant is sharing users’ data without their consent to 100 different telecom companies and phone makers in 50 countries.
The confidential documents reviewed by The Intercept reveals that Facebook is offering the data to its select partners that include not just technical information about Facebook devices, use of WiFi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests and even social groups. The report claims that the data is sourced not just from the company’s iOS and Android application, but also through Instagram and Messenger apps. The social media giant is also giving away the sensitive data of children as young as 13.
The report further highlights that the company is collecting the data from its Actionable Insights tool. The tool was announced last year and it is basically meant to solve “weak cellular data connections”. However, the report adds that the Actionable Insights is helping the corporates to use the personal data of the user for a more tightly targeted advertisement. “It’s exactly this sort of quasi-transactional data access that’s become a hallmark of Facebook’s business,” the report adds.
Facebook is harvesting data and packages it in eight different categories including use of video, demographics, location, use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, personal interests, device information, and friend homophily, an academic term of art. “From these eight categories alone, a third party could learn an extraordinary amount about patterns of users’ daily life,” the report said.
Contradicting the anonymous source, a Facebook spokesperson told the MailOnline: “We do not, nor have we ever, rated people’s credit worthiness for Actionable Insights or across ads and Facebook does not use people’s credit information in how we show ads.”