Facebook has launched the “Data Abuse Bounty” to reward people who report any misuse of data by app developers. The Data Abuse Bounty, inspired by the existing bug bounty programme that Facebook uses to uncover and address security issues, will help the social network identify violations of their policies.
This programme will reward people with first-hand knowledge and proof of cases where a Facebook platform app collects and transfers people’s data to another party to be sold, stolen or used for scams or political influence.
“Just like the bug bounty programme, we will reward based on the impact of each report. While there is no maximum, high impact bug reports have garnered as much as $40,000 for people who bring them to our attention,” said Collin Greene, Head of Product Security.
The company will review all legitimate reports and respond as quickly as possible when they identify a credible threat to people’s information. If the data abuse is confirmed, Facebook will shut down the offending app and take legal action against the company selling or buying the data, if necessary.
“We’ll pay the person who reported the issue, and we’ll also alert those we believe to be affected,” added Greene.
The Data Abuse Bounty is another step taken in a series of updates released by Facebook to protect users’ data.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that “mistakes" were made over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a "breach of trust" had occurred between it and its users.
Facebook now no longer allow apps to ask for access to personal information such as religious or political views, relationship status and details, custom friends lists, education and work history, fitness activity, book reading activity, music listening activity, news reading, video watch activity, and games activity.
