Facebook Admits To Recording Call & Text Logs
Facebook has recently confirmed that it has been recording and keeping text and call logs from millions of people using Android phones to access Facebook Messenger. This is just adding gas to the inferno that Facebook is going through already – as it has already lost $70 billion in just 10 days, which comes days after news broke that Cambridge Analytica revealed that it harvested user data from 50 million Facebook accounts.
You are able to download your own Facebook data from the platform by heading into your account settings and clicking “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” Recently, developer Dylan McKay had downloaded the data Facebook had collected and found that Facebook was recording every single call and text he had made over the past few years. This data includes the date, time, and duration of the call, who the call was to and who it was from. Shockingly, the calls weren’t made using any of Facebook’s applications – simply calls and texts from his phone.
Facebook has responded that it had been recording call history, stating that this is an opt-in feature.
“Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. This helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about, and provides you with a better experience across Facebook.”
Facebook did add that they didn’t record the calls or texts themselves, just the logs of who was contacted. It doesn’t appear that iPhone users were affected, however seeing as the Android operating system has an 80% market share, and 1.2 billion people have a Facebook Messenger account, that’s a lot of data that could potentially be collected.
