Facebook sharing user data to telecom companies

By Xite - May 22, 2019
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Facebook's mobile app collected data of its user to share it with approx. 100 different telecom companies in over 50 different countries around the world, including usage data from the phones of child....

While the social media giant Facebook it still recovering from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a new confidential document has revealed that Facebook is sharing private data of its users without their consent to over 100 telecom companies.

The confidential Facebook document was reviewed by The Intercept, saying that Facebook used this data to help operators and phone makers push target based advertising. Facebook is also collecting data from its Android and iOS apps and from Instagram. The Intercept also claimed Facebook of collecting technical data of smartphones, cellular and Wi-Fi networks used by it users, social groups and interests via a tool called ‘Actionable Insights.’

From this data, a third-party vendor could learn about patterns of users' daily life.

‘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,’ the company said in a statement earlier.

The telecom companies use this data to assess themselves against competitors, the number of customers won and lost and for targeted advertising, the repot claimed.

Last year, Facebook introduced ‘Actionable Insights’ tool that addresses the issue of weak cellular data connections.

The news comes soon after personal data of millions of influencers was exposed on Instagram and was traced back to Mumbai-based social media marketing firm Chtrbox.

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