Facebook admits that it shared user data with dozens of companies
Facebook sent answers on Friday to more questions asked by Congress in April to the CEO of the social network, Mark Zuckerberg. The social network had agreements with 61 companies, from AOL to UPS and even dating applications such as Hinge.
Facebook admitted having provided dozens of technology companies with special access to user data after publicly saying that it restricted access in 2015.
Facebook continued to share information with 61 hardware and software vendors after it said it was suspending the practice in May 2015, according to the social media giant on 747 pages of documents delivered to Congress on Friday night. The documents were in response to hundreds of questions posed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by members of Congress in April.
Facebook said it granted a special "one-off" six-month extension to companies ranging from AOL to the United Parcel Service (UPS) and the Hinge dating application so they could comply with the new privacy policy of the social network . Shared data without the knowledge of users include names of friends, genders and dates of birth.
"We hired companies to create integrations for a variety of devices, operating systems and other products in which we and our partners wanted to offer people a way to receive Facebook experiences," the company said in the documents. "These integrations were created by our partners, for our users, but approved by Facebook."
The Facebook documents also say that he discovered that five other companies "could theoretically have accessed data from limited friends" as a result of a beta test.
Facebook said in the documents that 38 of the alliances ended and plans to discontinue seven more by the end of July.
The revelation was part of Facebook's second attempt to answer questions put to Zuckerberg in April by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In June, the social network published its written responses to some of the committee's questions, many of which Zuckerberg responded to during that hearing by saying he would have his team "come back" to the legislators with the answers.
Zuckerberg's testimony before the Senate and House in April came as the social network grappled with a scandal involving Cambridge Analytica, a digital consultancy that had links to Trump's presidential campaign. Cambridge Analytica had access to the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users, prompting a reaction that raised questions about whether Facebook can be trusted to protect the personal information of its 2 billion users.
The company has also been on the sidelines for not doing enough to avoid the abuse of Russian trolls that posted erroneous information and abusive content on the platform. The Russian activity was part of a program to interfere in the US presidential elections. and sow discord among voters.
The legislators in particular expressed their concern about the access that Facebook has given to the data of its users to Huawei, a Chinese company with which the United States government has special problems, since it distrusts its services and networks, which could serve as a part of an espionage program of the Chinese government.
The controversy erupted in June when The New York Times reported that Facebook had agreements to provide access to large amounts of user data to at least 60 different device manufacturers, including companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and BlackBerry.
In one test, a reporter from The New York Times connected to Facebook with a BlackBerry 2013 device, using an account with approximately 550 friends, monitoring the data requested and received. Through a BlackBerry application called The Hub, the device was able to acquire "identifying information" for up to 295,000 Facebook users.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said it is taking steps to ensure that the exploitation of Cambridge Analytica data does not happen again. Zuckerberg said Facebook will investigate all applications that have access to large amounts of data and further restrict access to developer data.