OOPS: Facebook Leaked Millions Of Photos To Third Parties
Tom Pappert
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In the latest privacy blunder for the Big Tech platform, Facebook announced it discovered a bug in September that allowed the photos of up to 6.8 millions of users to be collected by third party app developers.
In its blog post, Facebook explains that third party app developers are typically allowed to collect photos users choose to upload publicly to their Facebook timeline. The bug gave third party developers access to private images users may have uploaded then chose not to post publicly, and images posted to Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Stories.
Facebook explains that as many as 6.8 million users may have had their private photos collected by as many as 1,500 third party apps built by 871 developers.
The company has been roiled by numerous privacy scandals throughout 2018, starting in April with the now infamous Cambridge Analytica data leak, in which the personal information of 87 million users was collected and traded by the research company, and potentially used to impact the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook experienced another privacy scandal only months later in September, when attackers managed to make off with private information of another 50 million users, and used security flaws to gain access to Instagram, Spotify, and other Facebook properties.
Facebook is recommending users review which apps have access to their photos and consider revoking the permission, and plans to give those users who may have had their photos collected a notification which will encourage them to review which apps have permission to collect photos and consider revoking it.
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