Facebook has been in hot water for a long time about its data collecting practices, and now Apple has announced it’s banning a Facebook research app that collects users’ personal information.
For its part, Facebook says it has stopped its “market research” program that was paying users in exchange for their mobile data.
Here’s what happened: TechCrunch broke the story that Apple claimed that Facebook broke an agreement by publishing a “research” app for iPhone users that let Facebook cull users’ personal data.
“The app allowed Facebook to track users’ app history, their private messages, and their location data. Facebook’s research effort reportedly targeted users as young as 13 years old,” TechCrunch reported.
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On top of this, Facebook has been “secretly paying people to install a ‘Facebook Research’ VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August. Facebook sidesteps the App Store and rewards teenagers and adults to download the Research app and give it root access to network traffic in what may be a violation of Apple policy so the social network can decrypt and analyze their phone activity, a TechCrunch investigation confirms,” TechCrunch reported. This is how Facebook broke its agreement with Apple.
The agreement was part of a program Apple has with several companies. “Facebook apparently took advantage of Apple’s “Developer Enterprise Program,” which lets approved Apple partners, like Facebook, test and distribute apps specifically for their own employees. In those cases, the employees can use third-party services to download beta versions of apps that aren’t available to the general public,” TechCrunch reported.
Apple reported to the TechCrunch report with this statement: “Apple’s response, via a PR rep this morning: “We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”
The Facebook practice has been going on since 2016, when the social networking giant starting paying teenagers and adults up to $20 a month plus referral fees to install its “Facebook Research” app on their Apple or Android phones.
The research app was allowing Facebook to collect all sorts of data.
“A security expert told the publication that the app allows Facebook to collect data including private social media messages, photos and videos sent via instant messaging apps, emails, web searches and web browsing activities. It can also track ongoing location information from other location tracking apps installed in the user’s phone,” CNBC reported.
And, Facebook has confirmed the TechCrunch report, though it denies it was “spying” on users.
“Like many companies, we invite people to participate in research that helps us identify things we can be doing better,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC in an emailed statement.
“Since this research is aimed at helping Facebook understand how people use their mobile devices, we’ve provided extensive information about the type of data we collect and how they can participate.”
“We don’t share this information with others and people can stop participating at any time,” the spokesperson added.
And while Facebook is pulling the app from all Apple devices, the app will still be available for Android users.
