Social Media Giant Facebook has acknowledged over an official blog post that even after formulating and implementing a protective policy, personal data of several inactive users who didn’t use the app for more than 90 days, were shared with third-party app developers.
In the past several months, approximately 5,000 third-party app developers continued to obtain the user data to which access was previously provided by the user. The Facebook policy and related internal systems block apps from collecting user data if users didn’t use an app for 90 days. According to Facebook, this data could have information like email addresses, gender, language, etc.
Facebook, however, claims: “We haven’t seen evidence that this issue resulted in sharing information that was inconsistent with the permissions people gave when they logged in using Facebook.”
Facebook also stated that it resolved the issue the day after the mistake was found.
The firm also published a new Platform Terms and Developer Policies, which “limits the information developers can share with third parties without explicit consent from people.” The new policies apparently “strengthen data security requirements and clarify when developers must delete data.”
The mistake and its acknowledgment happen to be in the midst of relentless criticism and boycotts by leading brands focused on the social media’s management of hate campaigns on its platform.
GCC Business News has reported that several high-profile brands including Coco-Cola, Unilever and Honda were stopping their promotions on the platform with support to the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign.
