Facebook Collecting Call and Text history from You

Did you give Facebook consent in collecting your call and text history? Maybe you did or maybe not. You could not remember because sometimes, you “allow” certain features to be activated or you just agree with everything when asked upon during the start of the app.

In a survey by TeamBlind, 89% of Android users say that they did not consent to that. Based on a report from an individual, he saw two years worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received in an archive file he pulled down from Facebook.

The above, according to Ars, is happening to other users too. Here is an excerpt from Facebook’s post on data collection:-

Call and text history is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. This means we can surface the people you most frequently connect with at the top of your contact list. We’ve reviewed this feature to confirm that Facebook does not collect the content of messages — and will delete all logs older than one year. In the future, the client will only upload to our servers the information needed to offer this feature — not broader data such as the time of calls.

BTW, this only applies to Android users and not iOS as iOS forbids any third party from accessing call logs information.

So the question remains: “Did you allow Facebook to gain access to your phone details?”

Recently, Facebook has gotten themselves into “hot soup” because of Cambridge Analytica. Facebook believed information of up to 87 million people — mostly in the US — may have been improperly shared. So far, based on the chart, none from Singapore.

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This has caused many uproars over the privacy of Facebook users. From 9th April, Facebook will provide more details to users. Here is some information from Facebook.

App Controls: Finally, starting on Monday, April 9, we’ll show people a link at the top of their News Feed so they can see what apps they use — and the information they have shared with those apps. People will also be able to remove apps that they no longer want. As part of this process we will also tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

So, if you are paranoid about these privacy issues, check out the below link for more information.

Survey Results by TeamBlind

or

Facebook Collecting Text, Call Data by Ars Technica

or

An Update on Our Plans to Restrict Data Access on Facebook

Some information is provided by TeamBlind.

About TeamBlind:

At TeamBlind, we’re on a mission to flatten the hierarchy and bring transparency to the workplace. Transparency results in voice and voice results in change; often for the better. That’s why we created ‘Blind’, an anonymous social app and online community for tech employees.