Facebook silently slides in another privacy breach
Following this, the social media giant suspended thousands of apps
PHOTO: AFP
Facebook is again in the news and time it is around it concerns another privacy breach, there could be as many as 100 developers that have gained access to Facebook user data due to error made by the social media giant.
According to Facebook’s developers blog, names and profile pictures of people on the social media platform were disclosed to few software developers despite having changed the access parameters back in April 2018.
"Roughly 100 partners" had gained access to users through the Groups API over the past 18 months, [while] at least 11 partners accessed group members' information in the last 60 days," stated Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of platform's partnerships.
Twitter admits phone numbers meant for security used for ads
"Before April 2018, group admins could authorise an app for a group, which gave the app developer access to information in the group. But as part of the changes to the Groups API after April 2018, if an admin authorised this access, that app would only get information, such as the group’s name, the number of users, and the content of posts," he further stated.
These changes were implemented after Facebook came under fire following the revelations made by Cambridge Analytica in March last year.
In recent news, an attempt to prevent privacy breaches the social media giant suspended thousands of apps from the platform without specifying any reason for doing so.
Facebook's Zuckerberg says company considered banning political ads
The company is taking strong measures by asking developers in concern to delete any information that they have accessed.
“These were primarily social media management and video streaming apps, designed to make it easier for group admins to manage their groups more effectively and help members share videos to their groups,” stated Papamiltiadis.
The post did not mention which groups were targeted and there is no sign of user data being misused either.
This article was originally published on Mashable.
According to Facebook’s developers blog, names and profile pictures of people on the social media platform were disclosed to few software developers despite having changed the access parameters back in April 2018.
"Roughly 100 partners" had gained access to users through the Groups API over the past 18 months, [while] at least 11 partners accessed group members' information in the last 60 days," stated Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of platform's partnerships.
Twitter admits phone numbers meant for security used for ads
"Before April 2018, group admins could authorise an app for a group, which gave the app developer access to information in the group. But as part of the changes to the Groups API after April 2018, if an admin authorised this access, that app would only get information, such as the group’s name, the number of users, and the content of posts," he further stated.
These changes were implemented after Facebook came under fire following the revelations made by Cambridge Analytica in March last year.
In recent news, an attempt to prevent privacy breaches the social media giant suspended thousands of apps from the platform without specifying any reason for doing so.
Facebook's Zuckerberg says company considered banning political ads
The company is taking strong measures by asking developers in concern to delete any information that they have accessed.
“These were primarily social media management and video streaming apps, designed to make it easier for group admins to manage their groups more effectively and help members share videos to their groups,” stated Papamiltiadis.
The post did not mention which groups were targeted and there is no sign of user data being misused either.
This article was originally published on Mashable.