Lately, Facebook has received a lot of criticism over user privacy and trust. Come 2019, and the social networking giant has been found to routinely track Android users even if they don’t use the app. According to a study by UK-based charity Privacy International, Facebook tracks users, non-users, and even logged out users. The study further found that after Google, the social network giant is the second most prevalent thrid-party tracking app.
“Data from different apps can paint a fine-grained and intimate picture of people’s activities, interests, behaviors and routines, some of which can reveal special category data, including information about people’s health or religion,” the report said.
Privacy International has unearthed a total of 34 Android apps with 10 to 500 million installs. These include apps such as TripAdvisor and Duolingo. The research suggests that app developers share data with the network via Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK). As many as 61 percent of the apps that Privacy International tested automatically transfer data to Facebook as soon as a user opens the app.
“At least 61 percent of the tested apps automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not,” explained the study.
Facebook says it’s OK to share user data
In response, the network told Privacy Interntaional that sharing data is a common partice for most companies, as it turns out to be useful for both users as well as comapnies.
“This information is important for helping developers understand how to improve their apps and for helping people receive relevant advertising in a privacy-protective way. We do this in a transparent manner by explaining the practice through our Data Policy and Cookies Policy, and by using Google’s advertising identifier, which can be controlled centrally by people using their device settings,” the social networking giant told Independent.
As already mentioned, Facebook has been embroiled in several controversies off late. Last year, it was critcised for harvesting personal data which resulted in election interference. A survey conducted by also Uber found that users trusted Facebook the least with their personal information, followed by Twitter and Amazon.
