Last year , I wastrying to solve a enigma . Facebook ’s “ People You May eff ” tool was out sexual practice worker ’ veridical identity to their clients , and vice versa , and I was trying to figure out how . A sex worker using the nom de guerre Leila tell me she had gone to large lengths to hide her identity from client by using an substitute name , alternate email speech , and burner speech sound turn — contact data she did n’t provide to Facebook — yet Facebook was still inextricably linking her with her clients , propose them to her real - name account as people she might desire to friend .
Facebook extract worry about this find , but its spokespeople purpose to be as stick as I was as to how it pass .
“ We take privacy earnestly and of course want to make certain masses have a safe and confident experience on Facebook , ” a Facebook spokesperson tell me at the time . “ We test a sort of signals for People You May Know and suggestions are always based on multiple sign . ”
That latter sentence says everything and nothing at the same metre , but before this year , a potential “ signal ” that could have stimulate this come to light . Five month after I published the news report about Leila , a Facebook drug user who had Facebook Messenger on his Android phone download his Facebook file anddiscovered that it contained a history of all his callswith his “ spouse ’s mum , ” include the missed ace , and how long they lasted . That led Facebook to expose that , yes , its Facebook Lite and Messenger apps on Android collect “ call and SMS history ” and had been doing so since 2015 . It was never roll out , according to Facebook , in the main Facebook app .
Facebook included this permit CRT screen in its Wiley Post , saying that it had popped up for users of Facebook Messenger , with the asking for “ call and text edition history ” in petite grey font , before the app would start sucking up that data . I think it ’s sightly to say that would have been easy to miss on a small phone screen .
Then last week , an internal Facebook email from 2015 add up to light in which Facebook employeesdiscussed the decisiveness to add the “ call and SMS chronicle ” permit on Android , say the “ growth squad [ would apply it ] for improving things like PYMK , ” Facebook ’s shorthand for “ People You May Know . ” One of the Facebookers , a merchandise manager not on the ontogeny squad , said this was a “ passably mellow danger matter to do from a praseodymium linear perspective ” and could go to headlines about Facebook trying to “ pry into your individual lifespan in even more terrifying ways . ”
Regardless , Facebook decide to go ahead with those permission petition and obviously no one noticed … that is until a user image his call history with his likely female parent - in - law in his Facebook pamphlet . The internal email from 2015 documents something reasonably disturbing : a schema by Facebook to make the data grab less noticeable . Yul Kwon , who was Facebook ’s principal privacy sherpa ( and — fun fact — also a Survivor winner ) , said the growth squad was prove an update that would n’t trigger Android ’s permissions request silver screen , meaning users would n’t get the alarum they might bear .
Despite being Facebook ’s lead privacy sherpa , Kwon did not object to this . There should have been someone in the room at Facebook say , “ Hey , perchance we should notify users both in the Android permit and in big mark within the app that we ’re plan to track everyone they call and textbook because that ’s a pretty invasive affair to do without their denotative and informed consent ! ” But no one in this 2015 discussion raised that care , at least not in the released email , including the person specifically tasked with work certain Facebook ’s products are privacy - compliant . Facebook apparently hoped it would only have to notify user what it was doing when it asked them to sync their contact within the Messenger and Lite apps , in that place where it can utilise the diminutive gray font .
A Facebook voice tell apart me that employees at the clip were spook by thepublic hysteriathat resulted in 2014 when users on Android were enquire to give the Facebook appaccess to their mike . Or as the employee put it in the 2015 email , a “ screenshot of the scary Android license projection screen becomes a meme , ” which would clue “ enterprising journalist into on the dot what the newfangled update is requesting . ”
It ’s undecipherable whether the scheme not to trigger Android permission actually worked . Technologist Ashkan Soltani and I ran a test where we download the versions of Facebook Lite from this clip period to an Android with an operating system of rules that was also from this time period . ( I have a surprising number of old Androids around my business firm ! ) When I upgraded to the Facebook Lite Android app that wanted to suck up datum about who I call and school text , it triggered a permissions asking to “ read call log . ”
And then when I signalize into Facebook in the Lite app — a version of Facebook meant for users on broken - bandwidth connections — it asked me to tote up my contact with this CRT screen :
This was not a rigorous or definitive test — we only tested Facebook Lite , not Messenger , as we did n’t have an applicable version of that available . And it ’s solely possible that a Facebook drug user ’s experience could have been different in 2015 .
irrespective of how Android users were apprise , this would help explicate why People You May Know good word are so creepily accurate for Android users . And why Facebook would be able to link up a sex worker with her clients if she had Messenger or Lite on her humanoid : The app would potentially be collecting information about everyone she promise and texted regardless of whether she impart them as a contact and irrespective of whether she was using a “ burner number ” that she ’d never given to Facebook .
But Facebook , as always , say it ’s more complicated than that . A spokesperson says this was one team verbalise about what another squad was doing and that it does not accurately capture what was materialise with mass You May be intimate .
“ When we made it potential for hoi polloi to synchronize their call / SMS logs in Messenger in May 2015 we did not use it to inform PYMK , ” said a Facebook spokesperson by email . “ We ran tests to understand whether the call / SMS lumber selective information people uploaded could ameliorate suggestions in citizenry You May hump . We did n’t found the lineament , so I would not characterize it as playing a ‘ primal purpose . ’ ”
In other words , Facebook only campaign “ tests ” with an nameless number of substance abuser to see whether this was a good way to figure out who they know and were tight to IRL . According to the spokesperson , the account of who people had called and texted was n’t incorporated into PYMK for all exploiter . The spokesperson could not evidence me how many users were part of the psychometric test , when the trial were run , or whether the tests continue . So Leila could have been part of the trial or she may not have been . Who knows ? ? ? ? ? Apparently not this Facebook spokesperson .
He did say Facebook could still adjudicate to make this a feature in PYMK one day .
As common , Facebook ’s machinations are shrouded in mystery to the detriment of its vulnerable users . If Facebook would be more outgoing about the information it ’s collecting about its user and how it use that data , whetherfor advertisingor for People You May Know , then users like Leila could protect themselves . But Facebook favour to be vague , whether because it ’s “ proprietary info ” or information that would commove its users enough to forsake the program all told .
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