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Apps Sharing Your Data With Facebook (Even if you Don't Have an Account)

posted by martyb on Tuesday January 01 2019, @02:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the sincere-apology-expected dept.

rigrig writes:

UK-based human rights charity Privacy International has released a report about Android apps sharing users' data with Facebook, even if they don't have an account.

Key findings

  • We found that at least 61 percent of apps we tested 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.
  • We also found that some apps routinely send Facebook data that is incredibly detailed and sometimes sensitive. Again, this concerns data of people who are either logged out of Facebook or who do not have a Facebook account.

Facebook spying on people is hardly news, but I figured Soylentils might be interested to hear about which companies decided to trust the Facebook SDK.
(They only tested Android apps, but it's likely that iOS versions of also use the Facebook SDK)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday January 01 2019, @11:59AM

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday January 01 2019, @11:59AM (#780600)
    The potential GDPR implications were one of my first thoughts too, as it stipulates both that a company must disclose who it is sharing information with and what information is being shared and that it must be opt-in, hence all the confirmation clickthroughs that are now appearing. These are not all "Mom and Pop" programming operations who might be able to fly below the radar for a while here, there are some big-name (e.g. lucrative) legal targets in the mix too. I'm also pretty sure the companies involved wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't something in it for them, so the implication is that Facebook is almost certainly paying for it and then further monetizing this data, so by making a few examples - possibly quite likely in the wake of Cambridge Analytica et al and Zuck's continued refusal to be quizzed by the EU in person - the EU would also be making life a little harder for Facebook, so there's an extra bonus in it as well.

    Sadly, I don't think this is going to convince many more people too #DeleteFacebook though. At this point if you're still using it of your own volition then you've pretty much decided your privacy is worthless anyway.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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