Facebook apologises in newspaper ads, defends data collection practices

As per The Guardian, Facebook makes it hard for users to delete their accounts, instead of pushing them towards “deactivation” of their account, which eventually leaves all personal data on the company’s servers.

Facebook claims Cambridge improperly obtained information from 270,000 people who downloaded an app described as a personality test.

A Cambridge University researcher made an app that asked Facebook users to take a personality test.

Just as Facebook was hoping the Cambridge Analytica debacle was becoming yesterday’s news, a fresh controversy regarding data collection hit the social network.

Users can do the same thing here, and can download gathered personal data in a Zip file.

As Ars Technica reports, installing Facebook on Android requires these permissions: access to contacts, SMS, and calls. In McKay’s case, he discovered “my entire call history with my partner’s mum” as well an historical record of every contact on his phone.

The loading screen of Facebook’s mobile application is seen in this photo illustration taken in Lavigny, Switzerland, May 16, 2012.

The social media giant said the company remains “strongly committed” to protecting people’s information and that it welcomes the opportunity to answer the FTC’s questions.

For the USA government, the question is whether this activity – and Facebook’s privacy practices when it comes to third-party apps – violated a 2011 settlement with the FTC over another privacy mishap related to the way it collects consumers’ information.

The tech leader says that this logging is a part of Facebook opt-in features for Messenger and Lite helping in staying connected with others.

The worse thing is that Facebook never explicitly revealed that the call data was being collected before 2016 because the permission asking feature came only in 2016. “If, at any time, they no longer wish to use this feature they can turn it off in settings”.

Users get the option to allow data collection when they sign up for Messenger or Facebook Lite, the Facebook posting said.

Shares in Facebook have plunged in recent days over its handling of the scandal, with tens of billions wiped off its valuation.

Beleaguered Facebook CEO admits breach of trust, promises action.

The company also leverages that data to better determine which from a user’s contacts are friends and which are merely colleagues.