Facebook Shares User Data With Huawei and Other Smartphone Companies
Facebook has confirmed that it has shared users’ data with at least 60 firms including Lenovo, Oppo, TCL, Huawei and other.
Facebook, a popular social networking platform has been in the News over the data sharing controversy that surfaced in the last few months. The social media giant has been under the scanner since then. The problems for Facebook doesn't seem to fade, as the company has confirmed for sharing user's data with various smartphone firms. Facebook which is facing the heat over data scandal, the social networking giant has admitted that it has shared data with other three China based companies - Lenovo, OPPO and TCL along with Huawei.
As per the report from Financial Times, Francisco Varela - VP Mobile Partnerships at Facebook mentioned that many technology companies have worked with Huawei. And Facebook's integration with the Chinese firms were controlled from the get-go.
The Facebook executive further added that, "Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei's servers."
Moreover, the confirmation regarding the same came from the company a day after The New York Times reported Facebook of providing access to users' data to not less than 60 smartphone makers including Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, Blackberry and more. As US military has banned smartphones made by Huawei and ZTE over the risks imposed by the firms which also raises concerns among the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Federal Communications Commission and House Intelligence Committee.
As Facebook has provided privileged access to users’ data to smartphone making companies like Huawei and TCL, it has raised various legitimate concerns over Facebook ensuring not sending of users’ data to Chinese servers. In order to get more clarity on the same, the Senate Commerce Committee has already sent a letter to the company to send reports over the data shared with the firms.
The social media giant defended by mentioning that the information has been shared with the companies under an agreement preventing them from using the data for any other purposes rather than recreating Facebook like experiences.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 06, 2018 12:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).