Back in 2015 , Facebook had a pickle of a problem . It was time to update the Android reading of the Facebook app , and two unlike groups within Facebook were at betting odds over what the datum grab should be .
The business team wanted to get Bluetooth permissions so it could advertise ads to hoi polloi ’s phones when they walk into a depot . Meanwhile , the growth team , which is responsible for bewilder more and more multitude to join Facebook , wanted to get “ show Call Log Permission ” so that Facebook could track everyone whom an Android user called or texted with in edict to make proficient ally recommendations to them . ( Yes , that ’s how Facebook may have historically figured out with whom you went on one bad Tinder date and then plopped them into “ People You May acknowledge . ” ) According tointernal emails recently seized by the UK Parliament , Facebook ’s business team recognized that what the growth squad wanted to do was improbably creepy-crawly and was disturbed it was going to make a Puerto Rico disaster .
In a February 4 , 2015 , email that encapsulate the issue , Facebook Bluetooth Beacon product manager Mike Lebeau is quote say that the request for “ translate call logarithm ” license was a “ passably gamy - risk thing to do from a PR perspective but it appears that the ontogeny squad will rouse before and do it . ”
LeBeau was apprehensive because a “ screenshot of the scary Android permission CRT screen becomes a meme ( as it has in the past times ) , propagates around the web , it baffle press attending , and enterprising journalists dig into what on the button the raw update is requesting . ” He suggest a possible headline for those journalists : “ Facebook expend new Android update to pry into your individual life in ever more terrific ways – take your call log , cut through you in businesses with beacon , etc . ” That ’s a great and exact headline . This guy might have a hereafter as a blogger .
At least he call the journalist “ enterprising ” instead of “ meddling tyke . ”
6 ) OK well at least Facebook developers were self aware of their public image ( re : bluetooth beacons and call - log ): " Facebook uses new Android update to crowbar into your secret life in ever more terrific ways – read your call log , tracking you in business with beacon , etc"pic.twitter.com/8iTcV7HENP
— ashkan soltani ( @ashk4n)December 5 , 2018
Then a man named Yul Kwon add up to the deliverance say that the growth team had come up with a solution ! Thanks to hapless Android license intention at the clip , there was a agency to update the Facebook app to get “ Read Call Log ” license without actually asking for it . “ Based on their initial examination , it seems that this would permit us to kick upstairs users without submit them to an Android license dialog at all , ” Kwon is quoted . “ It would still be a break away alteration , so user would have to come home to elevate , but no permissions duologue cover . They ’re trying to cease examination by tomorrow to see if the demeanor holds on-key across dissimilar rendering of Android . ”
Oh yay ! Facebook could suck more data from users without scaring them by telling them it was doing it ! This is a little surprising add up from Yul Kwon because he is Facebook ’s gaffer ‘ privacy sherpa , ’ who is supposed to ensure that new production coming out of Facebook are privacy - compliant . I know becauseI profile him , in a piece that happened to descend out the same daytime as this email was sent . A member of his squad told me their line of work was to check that that the things they ’re working on “ not show up on the front page of the New York Times ” because of a privacy blow - up . And I guess that was technically true , though it would be more reassuring if they tried to ensure Facebook did n’t do the creepy things that lead to privacy snow - ups rather than keeping users from recognise about the creepy things .
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download my facebook information as a ZIP file
Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner ’s mumpic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD
— Dylan McKay ( @dylanmckaynz)March 21 , 2018
But thanks potential to this evasion of Android license petition , Facebook users did not realize for years that the company was pile up information about who they called and texted , which would have helped explain to them why their “ the great unwashed You May Know ” passport were so spookily precise . Itonly came to light earlier this year , three years after it started , when a few Facebook users noticed their call and text chronicle in their Facebook single file when they downloaded them .
When that was discover March 2018 , Facebookplayed it off like it was n’t a bighearted deal . “ We introduced this characteristic for Android substance abuser a couple of twelvemonth ago , ” it wrote in a blog post , describe it as an “ opt - in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android . ”
Facebook preserve : “ People have to expressly agree to practice this feature . If , at any metre , they no longer wish to use this lineament they can turn it off insettings , orherefor Facebook Lite users , and all previously partake call and text history apportion via that app is deleted . ”
Facebook included a photo of the opt - in filmdom in its spot . In small grey typeface , it informed multitude they would be divvy up their call and school text history .
This special e-mail was seized by the UK Parliament from the founder of a start - up call Six4Three . It was one of many internal Facebook documents that Six4Three obtained as part of uncovering in a lawsuit it ’s act on against Facebook for banning its Pikinis app , which allowed Facebook users to collect photograph of their friends in bikinis . Yuck .
Facebook hasa lengthy responseto many of the revealing in the documents include to the discussion in this special e-mail :
Call and SMS account on Android
This specific feature allows people to opt in to giving Facebook access to their call and text messaging access Facebook Lite and Messenger on Android devices . We apply this data to do thing like make better suggestions for people to call in Messenger and rank contact lists in Messenger and Facebook Lite . After a thoroughgoing review in 2018 , it became clear that the information is not as useful after about a twelvemonth . For exemplar , as we utilise this selective information to number contacts that are most useful to you , old call history is less useful . You are unlikely to involve to call someone who you last yell over a year ago liken to a contact you bid just last week .
Facebook keeps avoiding in its statements about the call and sms story that the feature can be used to makecreepily accurate suggestion in citizenry you may know .
Facebookannounced in Aprilthat it would delete call log from more than a twelvemonth ago . In other words , Facebook earn it was n’t in particular useful to recommend you friend someone you texted 7 age ago about a lounge on Craigslist , and would only do that if you contacted them about a lounge within the last year .
- 3:54 premier : Updated with comment from Facebook .
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