Facebook Blocks Collection of Sensitive Data Through Apps Following New York Probe
February 18 2021 - 7:09PM
Dow Jones News
By Jeff Horwitz
Facebook Inc. has taken steps to prevent it from collecting
unauthorized data about people's medical conditions, religious
practices and finances but should do more to limit the sharing of
such sensitive information, the New York Department of Financial
Services said Thursday in an investigative report that was sharply
critical of the social-media giant.
The regulator concluded that Facebook has failed to
appropriately investigate its past collection of sensitive data and
called for further federal action.
The state's investigation began after The Wall Street Journal
reported in 2019 that personal health apps, including a popular
period and pregnancy tracker called Flo, were quietly passing data
to Facebook.
The transfer occurred through a snippet of code known as a
software development kit without providing users' notice or
obtaining consent. Facebook would then match the app users'
sensitive data to their social media accounts, allowing the
developers to target ads at them.
Officially, Facebook's terms of service prohibited app
developers from providing the platform with data from children or
about health, finance or other sensitive topics. But the company
told the New York regulator that it had "routinely obtained" such
data from developers, contrary to its own policies.
In response to the DFS's findings, Facebook called the issue of
health data sharing an industrywide problem and said that it
welcomed New York's review.
"Our policies prohibit sharing sensitive health information and
it's not something we want," a spokeswoman wrote.
Flo Health Inc., which developed the Flo app, separately reached
a settlement in January with the Federal Trade Commission in which
the company pledged to obtain an independent review of its privacy
practices and get users' consent before sharing their health
information. The company said it was committed to ensuring the
privacy of its users.
Following its admission that it had received sensitive data
without permission, Facebook took steps to block app developers
from providing data that included 70,000 terms related to topics
such as sexual health and medical conditions.The company also
created a machine learning system to improve its detection of such
data, the New York report said.
How well that effort will work isn't clear, the DFS said, citing
Facebook's struggle to reliably block off-limits data from a system
that collects more than 25 million "custom" data points a week.
"Facebook does little to track whether app developers are
violating this rule and takes no real action against developers
that do," the agency said.
While Facebook cooperated with the agency's requests to explain
how the lapses had occurred, the DFS said, the company balked at
undertaking a review of which developers had provided such data and
how it was used within Facebook's targeting systems.
"It is unclear whether Facebook was unwilling to expend the time
and resources to undertake this review or simply did not want a
regulator to gain access to such information," the DFS said,
calling on "federal regulators with nationwide jurisdiction over
Facebook to compel Facebook to provide full transparency on this
issue."
The FTC in December ordered nine social media and
video-streaming companies to provide the agency with data on how
they collect and use personal consumer information. The New York
regulator called for the agency to follow up on its report with
more action.
"The way Facebook receives and uses data from third parties
isn't unique to Facebook, and the issues identified in the WSJ
Article are present to some extent throughout the data analytics
industry," the agency wrote. "It is painfully obvious that laws and
regulations in this area have plainly not kept up with
technological advancement."
Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 18, 2021 18:54 ET (23:54 GMT)
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