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Facebook, Apps Secretly Share ‘Highly Sensitive’ Data Without Users’ Consent

Facebook has been covertly collecting deeply personal information from a number of popular apps, often without users’ knowledge

At least 11 popular apps have been sending the data to Facebook, including period-tracking app Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker, real estate app Realtor, and Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. 

The apps collected highly sensitive data, which ranged from things like users’ average weight and height to their blood pressure, ovulation cycles and pregnancy status.

In some cases, the ‘highly sensitive information’ is sent to Facebook mere seconds after it’s entered into the app – even if the user doesn’t have an account on the social media network, according to the Journal.

Facebook can collect the data as a result of its Software Development Kit (SDK), a set of open source software tools that can be used by developers to create apps.

Apps use Facebook’s SDK to build their software and, in exchange, Facebook often gets access to data those apps collect, for the purpose of targeting ads.

WHAT APPS ARE SHARING YOUR DATA WITH FACEBOOK?

A bombshell investigation by the Wall Street Journal tested a total of 70 apps and found that 11 were sharing data with Facebook, largely without users’ knowledge.

In some cases, this includes ‘highly sensitive information,’ and none provided a way for users to stop the data from being shared.

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Apps named by the Journal include:

Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor: Sent information such as heart rate to Facebook, and in at least one case, ‘immediately after it was recorded.’

Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker: Informed Facebook when user was having her period or had indicated an intention to get pregnant

Realtor.com: Sent location and price of listings that a user viewed and even made note of which were favorited

Breethe Inc: Shared users’ email addresses and the name of the meditations they’d completed 

BetterMe: Shared users weights and heights as soon as they were entered

The report, which only disclosed the names of a handful of the flagged apps, also notes that the list includes ‘at least six of the top 15 health and fitness apps in the US App Store‘ as of Feb 22.

It marks the latest in a litany of recent privacy scandals for Facebook, which have cratered its two billion-plus users’ trust in the site and raised questions over the need for regulators to rein in the social media giant.

The Wall Street Journal tested more than 70 apps and found that at least 11 apps sent highly sensitive information to Facebook.

The apps often fail to alert users that the data is being shared with Facebook.

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While users can control how apps collect data from their device, such as location, contacts or cookies, they have no way of stopping them from sharing sensitive data recorded in the apps with third parties such as Facebook.

For the investigation, the Journal used software to monitor the internet communications transmitted by the app and worked with a privacy software company, Disconnect, to test some of the apps.

They found that at least six of the top 15 health and fitness apps shared personal information with Facebook.

‘This is a big mess,’ Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer at Disconnect, told the Journal.

‘This is completely independent of the functionality of the app.’

Among the cases it found, Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor transmitted a user’s heart rate to Facebook within seconds of it being recorded, while Flo told Facebook when a user was ovulating or hoped to get pregnant.

Additionally, the Realtor.com app told Facebook the location and price of home listings viewed by users.

The Android version of ‘Better Me: Weight Loss Workouts’ was sending users’ weights and heights to Facebook, the Journal said.

Source: dailymail

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