How Facebook collects and sells user data

"Main article: Facebook
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"Main article: Meta (formerly Facebook) in Russia
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2023

A court in Norway began fining Meta $98,000 a day for illegally collecting user data

On August 7, 2023, Norway fined Meta (recognized as an extremist organization; activities on the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited) for violating the privacy of Internet users.

The Norwegian data protection and privacy body Datatilsynet announced in mid-July 2023 that Meta could not collect information about users in the country. We are talking about information such as the physical location of users. The company uses this information, including for targeted advertising, as well as for behavioral analysis.

Meta will be fined NOK 1 million ($98.2 thousand as of August 10, 2023) per day for privacy violations. The measure comes into force on August 14, 2023.

Penalties will be valid until November 3, 2023. Datatilsynet can make this measure permanent by contacting the European Data Protection Council. Moreover, the decision made in the future can be expanded throughout Europe.

Meta says it intends to seek the consent of users in the European Union before applying ad targeting based on what people view on various services, including Facebook and Instagram (both platforms are banned in Russia because they are owned by Meta).

On July 17, 2023, Politico reported that social networks Facebook and Instagram would be temporarily blocked in Norway due to tracking user data to form advertisements. It was said that the country's authorities demanded that Meta stop showing personalized ads to users in Norway based on their online activity and intended location. How much the measures taken will affect the company's business is not specified.^[1]

Developers from Russia and China had access to Facebook user data

The developers from Russia had access to user (to data Facebook owned by a company Meta recognized extremist and banned Russia in) that could be used for espionage. Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio appealed to the founder of the company in this regard. Mark Zuckerberg The letter is published on the Senate website. USA This became known on February 7, 2023.

As chairman and deputy chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we are seriously concerned about the extent to which this access could have contributed to the work of foreign intelligence, the document says.

Data on developers' access was published during the trial. Senators admitted that they were amazed at the content of these documents. According to only one of the latest, more than 42 thousand Russian developers, about 90 thousand developers from China and thousands more people from other "high-risk" countries, including North Korea and Iran, had access to user data. Back in 2018, Facebook admitted in internal documentation that this level of access could be used for espionage^[2].

2022

€390m fine for illegally using user data for advertising

In early 2023, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the imposition of a fine of €390 million on Meta (recognized as extremist and prohibited in Russia). This amount includes €210 million and €180 million, which the company will pay for violations of data protection rules on Facebook and Instagram, respectively.

DPC punished Meta after the regulator received two complaints in which the applicants accused Meta of forcing users to accept updated terms of service, providing consent to the processing of personal data for behavioral advertising and other personalized services. According to the authors of the appeal, in this way Meta violated the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP). The company relied on a contractual legal basis for most of its data operations.

In early January 2023, the Irish Data Protection Commission, ruling on Meta, explained in a statement that the company had breached "its transparency obligations" and relied on the wrong legal basis "to process personal data for advertising purposes."

Reuters notes that the total amount of fines imposed by the Irish regulator on the corporation by early January 2023 is €1.3 billion. DPC continues to deal with 11 more cases related to violations of Meta services in the field of data protection.

Meta said that the company strongly believes in complying with EU privacy laws, which allow for a number of legal grounds for data processing, and that decisions also do not require the use of consent to data processing.

We want to reassure users and companies that they can continue to benefit from personalised advertising in the EU through Meta platforms, the corporation said in a statement.[3]

Fine of $725 million for transferring user data to third-party companies

On December 22, 2022, Meta Platforms (recognized as extremist in Russia, its activities are prohibited) agreed to settle a class action lawsuit, in which the owner of the social network Facebook (blocked in the Russian Federation) was accused of selling user data to third parties. Meta agreed to pay a $725 million fine.

This is the largest compensation ever paid in a data privacy class action lawsuit and the largest amount Facebook has ever paid to settle a class action from individuals, Bloomberg quoted the plaintiffs as saying in court on Thursday, December 22, 2022.

According to Reuters, Meta's decision to pay $725 million completes a long-running lawsuit related to the illegal collection of data from more than 87 million Facebook users by the Cambridge Analytica consulting company (it no longer exists by December 2022). This information was used to study the political preferences of voters and showed them appropriate advertising.

The data was collected using a third-party polling application created on the social network platform. Facebook blocked the application and demanded that its creator and Cambridge Analytica destroy their data, but in the end it turned out that not all information was deleted.

Despite the fact that Meta agreed to pay compensation, the company did not admit the violation, saying that it agreed to the settlement "in the interests of our community and shareholders." In addition, the corporation said that in the past few years it has revised its privacy policy and implemented a new program to protect it.

Bloomberg notes that back in August 2022, Meta agreed to settle the Cambridge Analytica case, but specific terms were not disclosed at that time.^[4]

Hijacking user accounts by employees and selling them to hackers

On November 17, 2022, it became known that Meta Platforms (recognized as an extremist organization; activities on the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited) dismissed or subjected to disciplinary punishment more than 20 employees and contractors for the seizure of user accounts.

It is reported that the dismissed workers had access to a special social network mechanism Facebook Russia (activities are prohibited) called Oops (Online Operations). It is designed to help users who have forgotten their accounts (data login/password) or whose accounts have been hacked. hackers Meta employees used this system to capture other people's profiles. In some cases, negligent workers received bribes in the amount of thousands from cybercriminals for stealing an account. dollars Meta is also investigating the involvement of its other employees in the activities of fired colleagues.

{{quote 'Fraudulent service providers always target online platforms, including ours, and adapt their tactics to the detection methods that are commonly used in the industry. The company will continue to take appropriate action against those involved in such schemes, "said Meta spokesman Andy Stone. }}

As of November 2022, many users and individual entrepreneurs use social services to extract income or conduct business. Therefore, obtaining illegal control over the account, for example, for its subsequent sale to the rightful owner, is a very profitable fraudulent scheme. In some cases, a ransom of tens of thousands of dollars may be requested for stolen Facebook and Instagram accounts (activities in Russia are prohibited). In general, layoffs and disciplinary measures illustrate the large-scale and complex problem that Meta has to solve with its huge base of active users.^[5]

Google and Meta will pay billions to collect user data without their knowledge

On September 14, 2022, it became known that the South Korean regulator fined Google and Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) for tracking user behavior in Internet without their consent and using their data for targeted advertising.

South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission said it fined Google 69.2 billion won ($50 million) and Meta 30.8 billion won ($22 million) after a meeting at which officials concluded that companies' business practices could lead to "serious" privacy violations.

The fines were the largest ever issued by South Korea for violating the privacy law, the commission said in a press release.

According to the commission, Google and Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, did not inform users or obtain their consent when they collected information about their actions on the Internet and interaction with other sites or services outside their own platforms. That data was used to analyze their interests and create custom ads, the commission said.

The commission directed corporations to provide a simple and understandable process for obtaining consent by informing and giving users more control over the transmission of information about their actions on the Internet.

{{quote'Google did not inform consumers that it would collect and use their behavioral data about their use of other companies' [services] when they accepted the agreement, the commission said. }} {{quote 'Meta did not present the content of the agreement in such a way that consumers could easily see it when registering, but simply included it in its full data policy statement. She did not specifically inform consumers about the notifications provided for by law and did not receive their consent. }} The commission said corporate practices seriously threaten privacy rights, as more than 82% of South Koreans who use Google and more than 98% who use Meta platforms allowed companies to track their activities online.^[6]

Meta will pay $37.5 million to collect geolocation of users without their knowledge

At the end of August 2022, Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) reached an agreement on the settlement of a class action lawsuit, the authors of which accused the company of violating confidentiality by tracking their movements through smartphones. The company will pay $37.5 million.

The plaintiffs said they turned off location tracking on an app downloaded to their iOS and Android smartphones, but were shocked to find that the company still repeatedly recorded their location and recorded their specific latitude and longitude coordinates. Brendan Lundy and Mariah Watkins, who lived in Colorado at the time of the lawsuit in 2018, said they discovered the data when they requested a copy of their personal records held by Meta. The information was used to send targeted ads to users, the lawsuit alleges.

Meta used this location information to extract significant benefits for itself to the detriment of its users' privacy rights, it said in court documents. A second class action lawsuit was added to the case, led by a separate group of plaintiffs accusing the company of extracting location data from IP addresses. Meta's attempts to get the claim dismissed were unsuccessful, and after studying more than 100 thousand pages of internal documents, the company's lawyers decided to pay $37.5 million to settle the case.

The proposed settlement applies to all Facebook users (recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) living in the United States from January 30, 2015 to April 18, 2018, who disabled location tracking on their smartphones at any time during this period, but whose information was still collected by Facebook for advertising purposes. It is estimated that 70 million users can claim damages from the fund in the amount of $37.5 million, which is about $0.53 per person. After the administrative costs are deducted, members of the group will be able to file claims through an online form on the settlement website.^[7]

Apple and Meta mistakenly transferred users' personal data to hackers

As it became known at the end of March 2022, Apple and Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) transferred user data to hackers who pretended to be law enforcement officers.

According to information, Bloomberg Apple and Meta transferred to cybercriminals, such user data as the home address of users, mobile phone number and - IP address. The transfer information was carried out in response to fake emergency requests that do not require court warrants. USA Snap also received a fake request from the same ones, but hackers it is not known whether the company provided data in response.

According to cybersecurity experts from Nuance, the people behind the crimes may be minors from the United States or Great Britain. Presumably, the attackers used the real mail domains of law enforcement agencies around the world to make fake requests. According to Bloomberg, some requests were sent by hackers associated with the Recursion Team. The hacker group is not active for March 2022, but many of its former members continue to carry out attacks.

{{quote 'We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes to review law enforcement requests and identify abuse. We block known compromised accounts from making requests and work with law enforcement to respond to incidents, "said Meta PR manager Andy Stone. }} Information obtained by hackers through fake legal requests was used to carry out harassment campaigns, according to one of the people familiar with the investigation. The information could primarily have been used to facilitate financial fraud schemes, three people said. ^[8]

US authorities take up arms on Facebook for illegal facial recognition of users

Texas authorities are considering a lawsuit against Meta Platforms Corporation (ex-Facebook) for using facial recognition data without the knowledge of citizens. The lawsuit could cause serious financial losses for Meta. This became known on February 25, 2022.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims that Meta collected biometric user data without asking their consent, which directly violates the relevant state law - the Information Acquisition and Use Act biometric identification (CUBI Act).

Meta in November 2021 announced that it was rolling back its facial recognition system and removing images of about a billion people from its databases. The company claims that this information was intended to allow other users to tag them in photos.

The state demands $25,000 for each fact of violation of biometric the data law and another $10,000 for each violation of the Texas to trade Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Given how many people are considered affected, losing the case threatens Meta with multibillion-dollar losses.

The CUBI Act in Texas was passed back in 2009; it is somewhat softer in wording than a similar Illinois law, but in any case requires written permits from people to collect their biometrics, so Facebook is unlikely to win the case, said Alexey Vodyasov, chief technology officer at SEQ. - The only question is what the damage will be. the $650 million paid in Illinois is not billions; most likely, Meta will get off with something the same this time.

Meta briefly stated the unfounded accusations and the company's readiness to resolutely defend itself in court.

Meta's practice was very disliked by privacy advocates for understandable reasons: the use of facial recognition technology regularly becomes a source of abuse. Some states USA prohibit the use of such technologies by law enforcement agencies, and in, To Europe for example, in the fall of 2021, a resolution was adopted prohibiting the use of both face recognition technologies using and AI a predictive approach to law enforcement^[9]

Meta will pay $90 million to wiretap users' phones through plugins

On February 15, 2022 Meta , she agreed to pay $90 million to settle a class action lawsuit against Facebook over practices that allowed the social network to track user activity throughout. to the Internet Users accused Meta's division of violating federal and state USA privacy laws and wiretapping by using file storage plugins.

The settlement announced is one of the largest in Facebook's history. In addition, the case will also be among the 10 largest data privacy class action settlements in the United States, according to DiCello Levitt Gutzler.

The case, filed in 2012, refers to a 2010 Facebook update called Open Graph, which was designed to enable users' friends to explore their online activity and interests in more detail. As part of this update, the company launched a button plugin - like - on a site that users could click to highlight their interests for their networks. The button plugin also allowed Facebook to collect data using pieces of data sent by the web server and stored on users' devices. Key data spoke about user activity on the site, for example, which sites users visit, which products they view or buy, regardless of whether the user used the like button.

In order to reduce privacy concerns, Facebook in 2010 said it would not collect user-identifying files about user activity on partner sites. However, the researchers found that the company continues to collect some identifying files about users' internet activity even after users have logged off the platform, contrary to its promise. After the issue was widely publicized in 2011, Facebook initially defended the practice, but later issued a correction and clarified its policy, and members of the group in the case accused the company of violating the contract.

Reaching a settlement in this case more than a decade ago is in the best interests of our society and our shareholders, and we are pleased that this issue is a thing of the past. As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to delete user data collected by it during this practice, "said Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri[10]

Fine of 60 million euros due to cookies

In early January 2022 France Google , the National Commission on Informatics and Freedoms (CNIL) fined Meta Platforms 150 million and 60 million euros, respectively, for violations in the collection of user data.

As it Reuters clarifies, the claims relate to the management policy of the so-called. cookies files For some time they store in text the actions that the user performed on the site. These files allow you to track, for example, what is interesting to the user in order to offer him the most suitable advertising. More. here

2020

Facebook fined $6 million for transferring personal data of users

At the end of November 2020, it became known that the South Korean Commission for the Protection of Personal Information (PIPC) fined Facebook $6.1 million for disclosing information about its users to other companies.

The Facebook investigation was launched in 2018 by the Communications Commission, South Korea's telecommunications regulator, and the investigation later went to PIPC.

The South Korean regulator found out that in the period from May 2012 to June 2018, Facebook transferred personal information about more than 3.3 million South Korean users (the total number is 18 million users) to other companies.

PIPC said that when users logged into other companies' services using their Facebook accounts, their friends' personal information on the social network was also shared with other companies without consent.

Facebook users' personal information, which was disclosed to other companies, included usernames, their addresses, dates of birth, work experience, places of residence and relationship status.

South Korea's watchdog said the exact extent of the information provided was unclear because Facebook had not provided relevant documentation. Given that more than 10,000 other companies may have disclosed the information, the volume could be significant. The regulator sent documents to prosecutors to initiate criminal proceedings against Facebook Ireland, which was responsible for Facebook's work in South Korea from 2012 to 2018.

The director of Facebook Ireland, which is responsible for user privacy, faces up to five years in prison or a fine of no more than 50 million won if convicted of violating South Korea's relevant personal information law.

PIPC also imposed a separate fine of 66 million won on Facebook Ireland for false documentation.^[11]

Irish authorities ban Facebook from transferring data from Europe to the United States

In September 2020 Ireland , authorities banned Facebook the transfer of user data from the Europe. The USA company itself criticized these requirements, which, according to analysts, set a dangerous precedent for other tech giants.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which in the EU is responsible for regulating privacy issues, introduced a regulation on the need to stop the transfer of user data from European servers to American servers.

The lack of a safe and legal international data transfer will have negative consequences for the European economy, Facebook notes. - We urge regulators to take a pragmatic approach until a long-term responsible solution is found.

It is assumed that the initiative of the authorities could provoke a new transatlantic digital crisis. The order, called Independent.ie, is the result of a July ruling by the European Court of Justice that overturned the transatlantic treaty "Privacy Shield." This means that the "Standard Contractual Clauses" (SCC), used by thousands of European companies for data transfers, is now nearing cancellation. Facebook reacted by saying cancelling the SCC could cause short-term chaos for the global economy.

Analysts interviewed by The Wall Street Journal believe that the execution of this court decision can create many problems for American IT corporations, since they will have to either create opportunities to separate the data of EU citizens from all others and separately store them, or limit their operations in the EU. As the publication writes with reference to the source, it is highly likely that after Facebook such requirements can be sent to other technology companies.^[12]

Facebook for $650 million is ready to pay off accusations of illegal collection of biometric data

On August 20, 2020, it became known that Facebook would pay off charges of illegal data collection for $650 million.

To resolve the claims, Facebook added $100 million in July, bringing the total amount of compensation to $650 million. The revised settlement removed the court's concerns and led to a tentative approval of the settlement in the lawsuit.

A lawsuit against the company that owns the most popular social platform was filed in 2015 by residents of Illinois (USA), accusing it of violating the state law on the confidentiality of biometric information. The social network allegedly violated state law by using a "tag suggestion" feature that allowed users to recognize their Facebook friends from previously uploaded photos.

The final hearing of the case is scheduled for January 7, 2021.

Lawsuit for illegal collection of face templates of 100 million users on Instagram

In August 2020, Facebook was charged with collecting and storing biometric data from over 100 million users on the Instagram social network.

According to data from a lawsuit filed against the company, Instagram has a tool that uses a facial recognition system and creates a "face template" that it then stores in its database. The social network is accused of automatically scanning the faces of people who may not even use Instagram in photos of users.

Under Illinois law, Facebook can be forced to pay between 1 and 5 thousand dollars for a violation, so the total amount that a company can be forced to pay can be up to $ 500 billion.

Large-scale de-anonymization on Facebook

In May 2020, it is known that the social network intends to establish the identities of users whose messages are quickly becoming popular. In relation to anonymous accounts, tough measures will be taken and everything in order to reduce the audience for those who refused to provide documents or indicated incorrect data about themselves.

This is stated in a statement published on May 28 on the blog of the social network^[13]. The document states that the Facebook administration is trying to stop the posting of materials on the social network using specialized programs, as well as persons who impersonate other people.

Facebook specialists will identify account owners in cases where there is reason to believe that accounts are managed automatically, as well as in situations where "messages are quickly gaining popularity in the United States."

"We want people to know exactly who is behind the publication of the content they see on Facebook, this is especially important when it comes to content with a large audience reach," said representatives of the social network.

Facebook will pay $5 billion for data leakage of tens of millions of customers

At the end of April 2020, the US Federal Court issued a verdict according to which Facebook will have to pay $5 billion for leaking confidential data belonging to tens of millions of customers.

In addition to the fine, the ruling requires Facebook to strengthen its protection of sensitive data, provide detailed quarterly compliance reports, and allow an independent review board to monitor its operations.

Some privacy activists reacted negatively to the court ruling, arguing that American authorities allowed Facebook to get off easily in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the theft of data from millions of users. However, US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons said he was "pleased" with the court's decision and noted that this is the largest fine ever issued by a consumer protection agency.

At the same time, the court requires Facebook to monitor data privacy at every stage of its operations and provide substantially greater transparency and accountability for its executives' decisions regarding sensitive data, Simons said.

The agreement goes beyond the measures normally required by U.S. law and should "exemplify stricter controls on the protection of sensitive data," Facebook privacy director Michel Protti said in a blog post.

We hope that this case will be the impetus for further progress in the development of relevant legislation in the United States and other countries, "Protti said. Since the trial, Facebook has created dozens of teams that deal with privacy issues and thousands of people are working on projects related to its protection, he said.[14]

Facebook will pay $550 million for secret recognition of users' faces

At the end of January 2020, Facebook agreed to pay $550 million to settle the lawsuit, the authors of which accused the company of collecting and storing biometric data without the knowledge of users.

Illinois residents filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook in 2015, accusing the company of violating the law by using facial recognition technology to collect data. The reason for the complaint was the Tag Suggestions service, which helped automatically tag people in uploaded photos. 

Facebook tried to challenge the filing of a class  action lawsuit, but a federal appeals court in the United States rejected the attempt.

As a result, the company resolved the dispute in pre-trial order and included $550 million in the expense line in the reporting for the fourth quarter of 2019. Apparently, Facebook got off easily: in 2018, Judge James Donato, who handled the case, said that "the statutory damage could amount to billions of dollars."

We decided to seek a settlement [of the claims] to leave this topic in the past, in the best interests of our community and shareholders, "said Facebook CFO David Wehner.

Jay Edelson, who represents residents in the state, noted that the settlement underscored the importance of strict privacy legislation.

The American Civil Liberties Union believes the proliferation of powerful surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition, could limit people's ability to remain anonymous in public.

Facebook will now have to seek permission from residents in that state of Illinois to use facial recognition technology and automatic user markings in uploaded photos. Although the company agreed to pay the fine, it still denies the charges.^[15]

2019

Database with data of Facebook users for 1.2 billion records were in the public domain

On November 24, 2019, it became known that American security researcher Vinny Troia discovered an accessible one database containing more than 4 TB - information a total of 1.2 billion records, including from data the profiles of hundreds of millions of users, and. social networks Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Github More. here

Data breach of 419 million Facebook users with phone numbers

In early September 2019, it became known about the data leak of more than 419 million Facebook users. The database turned out to be in the public domain, which contains mainly phone numbers, unique identifiers of social network participants, as well as information about the country of residence of users and gender.

The fact that information about Facebook users was stored on an unprotected open access server was written by TechCrunch, citing security expert Sanyam Jain, who discovered the leak.

According to the specialist, more than 419 million user records in various countries were freely available, including 133 million records living in the United States, 18 million British records and 50 million Vietnamese records.

TechCrunch writes that the publication's employees checked several numbers from the database and made sure that they really belong to familiar Facebook users.

It is assumed that such information, falling into the hands of cybercriminals, made it easier for them to send spam to the owners of phones and accounts. The base was collected using the user search function by phone number, disabled in 2018.

The publication does not explain what percentage of records might contain duplicate information or incorrect data. TechCrunch employees believe that the information provided in the database, in particular, could facilitate sending spam to phone and account owners.

Facebook spokesman Jay Nancarrow told TechCrunch the server contained outdated data that was collected before the company shut down access to phone numbers. 

The Data Base been deleted, and we do not have evidence that Facebook accounts were hacked, he stressed.

Facebook also said that the real volume of the leak was "closer to half" the number reported by Sanyam Jane, since there was a lot of repetitive data in the database.^[16]

Google and Facebook sell advertisers data on people's emotional state

In early September 2019, Privacy International (PI) investigated more than 100 mental health sites in France, Germany and the UK and concluded that sensitive mental health information was often sold to advertisers by tech companies such as Google and Facebook.

According to the researchers, the sale of this information was "neither transparent nor fair, and often did not have a clear legal basis." Almost all of the websites examined had a large number of cookies - computer files that are downloaded to a user's device to track their activities - and three-quarters of them were implemented for marketing or advertising purposes. Many of the web pages contained cookies to allow targeted ads from Google, Facebook and Amazon. No less used Hotjar - software that allows you to register and play back all user actions.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) required sites to warn users about the use of cookies and ask for their consent. The ePrivacy directive requires that users receive clear and comprehensive information about what data is used and how. And in the case of highly sensitive data, such as health information, such consent should be explicit and unambiguous. However, the PI investigation found that some websites did not have a consent form to use the data, while other sites sought consent but did so in an extremely streamlined manner.

PI also analyzed nine websites that invited visitors to take a mental health questionnaire. Three had cookies for advertising purposes, and one site, Doctissimo.fr, sent questionnaire responses along with a unique identifier, such as an IP address, to a third party.^[17]

Facebook will pay $5 billion to sell user data to companies

On July 24, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a $5 billion fine on Facebook for losing control of user data and selling it to advertisers and other companies.

As noted by CNN, $5 billion is the largest fine from the FTC, it is 20 times more than the previous record penalty and roughly corresponds to Facebook's monthly revenue. Earlier, the Internet company included in the list of possible spending "unforeseen expenses" of $3-5 billion due to an investigation by the US authorities.

Facebook agreed to the deal after years of violations of its privacy policies. The latest straw was the scandal, when analyst firm Cambridge Analytica obtained the data of 87 million Facebook users and used it to study voters' political preferences and show them appropriate ads.

Facebook will pay a record fine of $5 billion and impose new restrictions and changes to its corporate structure, which will make the company responsible for the decisions it makes regarding the privacy of its users' data, the FTC said in a July 24, 2019 statement.

According to the regulator, Facebook violated the law by abusing phone numbers that were supposed to be used only for the security of accounts, but were ultimately used for advertising purposes.

In addition, the company deceived "tens of millions of users" by saying that the facial recognition feature on the service was not enabled by default. In fact, she was active, they say in the FTC.

US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons noted that this fine is imposed not only to show how they will punish for this in the future, but also to change "the entire privacy culture of Facebook to reduce the likelihood of new violations."^[18]

In addition to the fine, the FTC obliged Facebook to tighten the rules for protecting personal data of users, stopping using telephone numbers obtained during two-factor authentication in advertising tools and obtaining the consent of users to use data using facial identification activated in the default service.

In addition, the commission obliged the Facebook board to create an independent committee that will limit Mark Zuckerberg's ability to make decisions regarding the security of users' personal data, and cannot be fired by the head of the social network.

At the same time, members of the committee will be checked for compliance with confidentiality requirements and in case of violations can be brought to personal responsibility, including criminal.

Facebook agreed to pay the fine and redesign data privacy breach risk warning systems.

Facebook will also refuse to provide Microsoft and Sony with information about the lists of friends of social network users registered in the services of these companies.

Facebook embeds hidden codes in photos uploaded by users to the site

According to researcher Edin Jusupovic, social network Facebook he embeds hidden codes in photos uploaded by users to the site. This became known on July 5, 2019. The company can track related activity and use these data for targeting. advertizing

I noticed a structural anomaly while viewing the dump in hexadecimal format from an unknown source and found inside, as I already understood, a special IPTC instruction. Shocking level of surveillance,

Facebook can track photos even outside its network by pinpointing who originally uploaded the photo (and more), he said.

"Special IPTC instructions" are essentially watermarks added by Facebook to mark images. They can be used to track image ownership, to eliminate copyright infringements, to provide advanced user services, to more accurately target advertising and track links between different users.

As analysts explain, Facebook has been using such tracker codes since 2016. For the company, this is another way to establish a relationship between^[19] users^[20].

Facebook management used users' personal data to enrich and fight competitors

The head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, used the personal data of social network users as a tool for enriching and achieving leading positions in the market. This is stated in the material of the NBC channel (April 2019), which managed to gain access to 4 thousand pages of internal documents.

The documents are dated 2011-2015 and include emails, chat correspondence, presentations, etc.

According to the channel, Zuckerberg, along with other top managers of Facebook, allowed the conclusion of mutually beneficial agreements with other companies, one of the points in which could be the provision of access to data from users of the social network. In some cases, Facebook provided access to information as a reward for companies, in others - denied access to information to those whom it considered competitors. Similar deals are said to have come amid Zuckerberg's repeated claims about the company's serious handling of user data security.

As an example, the channel cites an agreement with Amazon, under which Facebook provided Jeff Bezos' company with "expanded access to user data" for investing in social network advertising and collaborating on the launch of its new Fire smartphone.

Contrary to public statements, the channel claims, the management of the social network used several methods of extorting compensation from third-party applications for access to user data, including direct payments, spending on advertising and data exchange. Ultimately, Facebook decided not to sell the data directly, but to provide it to developers of applications considered personal "friends" of Zuckerberg, or those who invested in Facebook or shared their own valuable information.

Leaked internal documents: Facebook blackmailed politicians around the world to prevent users' data from being protected

On March 4, 2019, it became known that Facebook it put pressure on politicians around the world to sabotage the adoption of laws protecting the privacy of users. Internet The company did this because its entire business model is just built on privacy violations - collecting data about the user with their subsequent sale, to advertisers noted in. CNews

This is evidenced by internal Facebook documents at the disposal of the Observer and Computer Weekly. Among the politicians Facebook managed to win over were the former chancellor of the exchequer and Great Britain former prime minister. Various Ireland politicians,,,,,, and USA Canada Vietnam India Argentina all Brazil Malaysia 28 participating countries also became Facebook's friends. European Union

A Facebook spokesman said that the documents in question are, according to information as of March 2019, at the disposal of the court in California, and their viewing is prohibited by a court warrant. Like any documents published illegally, these "tell a story only on one side and omit important context," the company assures.

Through pressure on politicians, Facebook managed to lobby for relaxation in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was adopted in Europe in 2016. During the fight against GDPR, the company blackmailed well-known politicians by not investing in their countries if they support unfriendly legislation towards it.

In particular, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who became one of Facebook's "friends," fell under the influence of Facebook. Kenny was president of the Council of the European Union in 2013 - shortly after the first version of GDPR was proposed in 2012. When the decision was made whether to apply GDPR and other similar laws to Facebook, Kenny was supposed to be as neutral as possible, but was actually on the side of the company. This was influenced, among other things, by Facebook's decision to locate its European headquarters in Dublin, adopted in 2008.

Another "Facebook friend" was British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. Thanks to this, the company managed to exchange its willingness to invest in UK technology enterprises to support its interests in the debate around the European Data Protection Directive. The directive, which entered into force in 1998, regulates the processing of personal data and their free movement in the European Union.

The company's basic tactics were as follows. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg usually met with politicians, using her feminist memoir Lean In as an excuse.

It is known that in 2013 Osborne helped organize an event dedicated to Sandberg's memoirs. He himself revealed in an interview with the Observer that it was no secret, and that the book's main message - women's empowerment - was warmly received around the world. Osborne confirmed that he had met with Sandberg and that it was no surprise that the chief operating officer of a major tech company shared concerns with him about the Data Protection Directive. He claims that he did not agree with these concerns and did not lobby for Facebook's position in the European Union.

The memoir itself, with its message, was used as a tool to influence female politicians unfriendly to Facebook. For example, one of the events dedicated to the book was attended by Viviane Reading, EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. One of the principal architects of the Directive, Reding disliked American companies. Sandberg managed to talk to her after the event and find common ground on the grounds that women need to be promoted to higher-level positions. It follows from the documents that this acquaintance subsequently justified itself.^[21]

Germany bans Facebook from collecting data outside the social network

On February 7, 2019, the German antimonopoly regulator limited the collection of Facebook data after the world's largest social network, having abused its dominant position, accumulated information about users without their knowledge and consent.

In the future, Facebook will no longer be allowed to force users to agree to almost unlimited data collection and assignment not related to Facebook or their social network accounts, said Andreas Mundt, head of the Federal Cartel Office, Germany's German antimonopoly service headquartered in Bonn.

The department clarified that the company will be able to collect data from WhatsApp or Instagram (both services belong to Facebook) only with the voluntary consent of users.

The combination of data sources essentially leads to the fact that Facebook gets the opportunity to create a unique database for each individual user in order to strengthen the dominant position in the market, Mundt said.

According to him, in case of violation of the requirement, Facebook can be fined up to 10 million euros per month. He also noted that every day and month Facebook is used by 20 and 30 million people in Germany, respectively, and the share of the social network in the country is 80-90%. Now users of the social network will not automatically agree to collect data from third-party sources.

Facebook disagreed with the antitrust findings and said the company does not compete with other online services like YouTube or Twitter. Facebook also accused the department of encroaching on areas that are properly regulated by data protection authorities in accordance with GDPR regulations.^[22]

2018

Facebook has been surreptitiously giving Apple, Microsoft, Samsung user data for 10 years

Facebook provides manufacturers of mobile devices with wide access to the data of social network users and their friends, according to The New York Times. Since 2007, in the course of the struggle for a dominant position in the social media market, Facebook has entered into data supply agreements with at least 60 manufacturers, including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung^[23].

The company began making such agreements even before the Facebook app became widespread on mobile devices. The agreements allowed social networks to increase their user audience, and gadget manufacturers to offer users popular Facebook features such as messaging, a Like button and an address book.

Experiments conducted by The New York Times showed that equipment manufacturers still receive Facebook user data according to the same scheme that was in effect for all third parties until 2014. Some vendors can get information about the status of the user's relationship, his religious affiliation, political inclinations and upcoming events.

Among other things, these agreements gave smartphone manufacturers access to the data of user friends without their consent, although Facebook has repeatedly declared that it no longer shares such information with third parties. As the publication found out, some smartphone manufacturers could get personal data even from those user friends who turned off the ability to share them with social network partners.

Intimate data of millions of Facebook users has been freely available for years

The data of more than 3 million Facebook users, collected by the myPersonality personality assessment application, has been freely available on the Internet for 4 years, New Scientist reports. myPersonality gives users the opportunity to pass a number of psychological tests, so the public access turned out to be quite intimate details of their lives^[24] of millions of^[25].

Staff at the University of Cambridge Psychometric Centre, who created myPersonality, shared the collected data with hundreds of researchers through a website that was not sufficiently protected. It was pretty easy to access the information. It was assumed that the data should be anonymous, but their composition itself made it easy to de-anonymize them, writes New Scientist.

Data dissemination

In total, more than 6 million people passed the myPersonality tests, and about half of them allowed the application to access their Facebook profile data. The collected information went through a depersonalization procedure - a necessary condition to be able to share it with other researchers. After that, the data was uploaded to the site.

To access the full dataset, the researcher had to register as a project employee. More than 280 specialists from about 150 organizations thus gained access to data. Among them are both researchers from various universities and employees of companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

US Migration Service uses Facebook data to identify illegal immigrants

In March 2018, thanks to intercepted correspondence, it became known that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses confidential Facebook data to search for and track down suspects.

So, in February and March 2017, several immigration police agents received Facebook data, which contained an account access log and IP addresses corresponding to each login. Agent Lee Whitey from the investigation team sent this data by email to his team, giving the suspect's phone number and places of entry into his account on certain days, according to The Intercept.

It is known that law enforcement officers regularly use bank records, telephone conversations and social media data to conduct investigations. Nevertheless, a spokesman for Facebook said that immigration police do not have unique access to data:

Facebook does not give Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other law enforcement agencies special access to data under immigration law. The processing of government requests is carried out according to strictly defined procedures. Each request we receive must prove its legal validity. We require officials to provide detailed legal and factual justification for their request, and have the right to refuse to provide information if the request does not comply with current legislation.

In the specific case presented, we received a legally sound request from Immigration Police, which we responded to under public standards of disclosure of confidential information. In this case, the police, using the data obtained, did not identify violations of immigration law.[26]

Long-term collection of data on telephone conversations and SMS

In March 2018, it became known about the long-term collection of user data on Facebook about telephone conversations, as well as about SMS messages sent and received.

New Zealand programmer Dylan McKay conducted an experiment by siphoning off his data archive on the social network Facebook. It turned out that the document contains a list of recipients of his phone book, information about all text messages and calls. Moreover, some data were collected a few years ago.

According to McKay, he was very surprised that Facebook collected metadata about its mobile activity - for example, the duration of the call or the date of the SMS message.

For some reason, among this data was the history of my calls, "McKay wrote.

The programmer posted the details of his find on his Twitter blog. Later, other Facebook users, having analyzed the archives of personal information, confirmed the fact of collecting and storing data by the social network.

In the comments, subscribers noticed that such a problem affected most smartphones on the Android platform, which by default synchronize the list of friends on Facebook with the contact list of a mobile phone.

In iOS, the situation is somewhat different: the security system in this platform is such that the vast majority of applications, including Facebook, do not have access to the same call log.

Facebook said that collecting user data is needed to make the process of finding people easier. At the same time, the company noted that access to contacts is optional and the application requests a separate permission for this.

Facebook also stressed that users can delete all contact data from their profile using a tool on the site. At the same time, dissatisfied users note that they never gave consent to collect some information.^[27]

To protect themselves from unauthorized data collection, users were advised to disable the access of the Facebook mobile application to the address book.

Britain's Cambridge Analytica gets data from 50 million Facebook users to sell them political ads

The company's shares are falling, Mark Zuckerberg is threatened with a challenge to Congress, the United States and the European Union are going to launch an investigation into it. The reason is a series of investigations by The Guardian and The New York Times. Journalists found out^[28], that the British company Cambridge Analytica collected data on the behavior of 50 million Americans in order to then sell them political ads. Facebook was aware of the leak but did nothing.

The founder of the social network Facebook Mark Zuckerberg commented on his page on the social network scandal due to the leakage of personal data of 50 million users. The British analytical company Cambridge Analytica received them from Alexander Kogan, professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge. He developed a test that passed about 300 thousand people, which allowed Kogan to collect data on 50 million Facebook users. Having obtained this data, Cambridge Analytica used it to create an algorithm that reveals the preferences of American voters. With the help of an application created on the basis of an algorithm, during the presidential campaign in the United States, an addressable advertising mailing was carried out^[29]

Zuckerberg admitted that Kogan found a vulnerability on the social network and took advantage of it by collecting personal data of a large number of users in 2013. "In 2015, we learned from journalists from The Guardian that Kogan shared the data of the application he developed with Cambridge Analytica," Zuckerberg said. According to him, this does not comply with the company's policy, so the social network immediately closed Kogan's access to personal data, banned the use of the application he developed and demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica delete information about all personal data obtained illegally. According to him, at that time they provided evidence that the requirements of the social network were fulfilled.

"Last week we learned from The Guardian, the New York Times and Channel 4 that Cambridge Analytica may not have deleted the data it had obtained. We immediately banned her from any of our services. Cambridge Analytica claims that they have already deleted the data and agreed to an examination that we decided to conduct to confirm this, "Zuckerberg wrote.

The founder of Facebook admitted that the social network is to blame for the leakage of personal data of its users. "This is a breach of trust between Facebook and people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We must fix this, "the publication said.

Withdrawal of 1.5 billion users from the law on the protection of personal Europe (GDPR)

In April 2018, Facebook changed the terms of service, as a result of which about 1.5 billion users changed their European jurisdiction to American.

These members of the social network will not be protected, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will enter into force in the EU on May 25, 2018. GDPR Companies from different industries that use personal data any individual located in the territory are covered. European Union They will have to store data in impersonal and form encrypted , ensure the proper level of it, do not protection against leaks transfer data to third parties and inform citizens and regulatory authorities about any information leakage within 72 hours. In the event of a GDPR violation, companies face fines of up to 4% of annual revenue. In the case of Facebook, this could be an amount in the region of $1.6 billion.

With Facebook's European headquarters in Ireland, 1.5 billion users of the service from Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and the CIS have been protected under EU law. After the innovations announced in April 2018, these people's data will be regulated by US laws.

This move will allow the company not to follow GDPR requirements in non-EU countries and will affect more than 70% of Facebook's audience, which by April 2018 exceeds 2 billion people. In Europe and Canada, 239 million people use the social network, in Europe - 370 million.

North American users have never obeyed European rules, the BBC notes. US laws on personal data are not as strict as European ones. Some types of data, such as web browsing history, are considered personal in EU law, but are not legally protected in the United States.

As noted by The Guardian, previously Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg evaded a direct answer to the question whether his social network would provide users with the protection provided for by the GDPR provisions.^[30]

According to Morningstar analyst Ali Mogarabi, the new barriers to entering the market, which appear after the adoption of laws in Europe and the United States, will make Facebook a monopoly not only for users, but also for advertisers.

The restrictions will force Facebook to briefly lower ad prices. However, they will also help the company maintain its dominant position and again raise prices. Advertisers will be forced to agree to the proposed conditions due to a reduction in the number of alternative platforms, the expert said.

Germany introduces an injunction on the requirement to indicate real names on the social network

In February 2018, a German court banned Facebook from requiring users to provide real names. The lawsuit was filed by the Federal Union of Consumer Protection Societies (VZBV).

The Berlin Land Court ruled that Facebook must change some settings and provisions on the protection of information and user conditions because they violate current German law.

According to the judge's ruling, the condition under which a person can use the services of a company only under his real name is unacceptable. Online service operators must provide users with the opportunity to participate anonymously, in particular, under a pseudonym, according to a court decision cited by Reuters.

Facebook hides default settings that aren't privacy-focused in its privacy section and doesn't give enough information about them when it registers. This does not meet the requirement of informed consent, - said the representative of VZBV Heiko Duenkel.

In addition to the ban on mandatory real names on the social network, the Berlin Land Court upheld some other requirements specified in the VZBV lawsuit. In particular, it was noted that the Facebook app for smartphones automatically activated the geolocation function and the collection of user location data, which, as emphasized in the statement of claim, "does not meet the requirement of informed consent."

Facebook announced plans to appeal the court decision and noted that since the start of this proceedings in 2015, the rules and settings have changed significantly on the social network.

The company has also pledged to update its data protection guidelines and terms of service to comply with new European rules that will come into force in June 2018.^[31]

2017

Germany accuses Facebook of illegally collecting user data

The Federal Antimonopoly Agency of Germany (Bundeskartellamt) suspected Facebook of illegally using German user data, as the social network is engaged in unlimited collection and processing of user information from third sources, violating European norms^[32].

In a statement released^[33] on Tuesday, December 19, 2017, the agency criticized the largest social network for collecting data through Facebook-owned services such as WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as Internet pages and mobile applications of other owners that are associated with the social network.

"We

are mainly concerned about collecting data outside the Facebook social network and merging that data with the user's Facebook account. Through the API, data is transmitted and processed by Facebook even if a social network user visited other websites. This happens if, for example, a person does not use the "I like" button at all, but calls up third-party pages that have such a service. Users are not aware of this, "said Andreas Mundt, head of Bundeskartellamt.

The agency is not sure that users provide voluntary consent to such data collection. The scale and methods of collecting information violate European law in this area, Mundt added.

In early 2018, in Germany, a court found Facebook's use of personal data of its users illegal because the social network did not ask for consent to their processing properly. This was reported^[34] press service of the German Consumer Protection Federation (Der Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband, vzbv)^[35].

According to representatives of the federation, the default settings in the Facebook application and some of its terms of service violate consumer law, as a result of which the court declared parts of the user agreement on the use of personal data invalid. "Facebook hides the default settings and does not provide users with sufficient information about the use of their data when registering [...] This does not meet the definition of informed consent, "human rights activists said.

One problem was that Facebook's smartphone app had a default service for displaying a user's location to their interlocutor. In addition, privacy settings have enabled features by default that allow search engines to reference a user's timeline, allowing you to quickly and easily find a specific user's profile.

Facebook caught in surveillance of user conversations

In 2017, users of the Reddit^[36] forum drew attention to a video published by a user under the pseudonym Neville, which refers to the fact that Facebook allegedly monitors users' conversations for subsequent display of contextual ads^[37].

In the video, Neville demonstrates how the social network overhears users' conversations on everyday topics through the microphones of their devices, and then displays ads that correspond to their interests. For the purpose of the experiment, at the beginning of the video, Neville specifically talks only about cats and cat food, and then (after a while) opens the Facebook application and demonstrates the advertising for pet food that has appeared.

Other Reddit users also reported facing similar situations. The Facebook app repeatedly showed them ads for products they were just talking about with their relatives or colleagues, they said.

In turn, Facebook Vice President Rob Goldman denied accusations of wiretapping social network users.

Secret experiments: spying on the emotional state of users and trying to change it

In May 2017, the Australian newspaper The Australian^[38] published secret data on Facebook experiments. It turned out that the social network secretly monitored the emotional state of users and learned to change it. The brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg was quick to blame inhumane experiences and, worse, an attempt to sell the data to advertisers. "Лента.ру" understood how the internet giant tries to manage people's feelings^[39].

Journalists found out that the Australian division of Facebook painstakingly followed schoolchildren, students and working youth. Users, of course, were not warned about this, but a voluminous dossier was collected on them in order to identify all the weaknesses and fears of the younger generation with its help.

The secret team of employees did not just analyze the likes and charms of teenagers: they rated all their publications, comments and reactions on an extensive scale from "happy" to "close to suicide."

The report, for example, states that at the beginning of the week, young Facebook users are not too willing to share emotions: they feel insecure and are struggling to fight fears. Weekends are mainly spent on boasting about achievements for the week in front of the entire feed of friends.

Apparently, the Australian team compiled a profile for each teenager whom they established surveillance. In addition to behavioral features, the profile included such data as the presence of a romantic relationship, the number of friends and the frequency of use of the social network. In the documents, journalists found accurate data on when and in what amount the teenager publishes posts and photos, as well as how he reacts to publications in the feeds of his friends.

After the files were in the hands of journalists and became public, Facebook explained that all this is only part of a large-scale study to understand the behavior of a young audience.

Scanning user posts and comments to spot suicides

In late November 2017, Facebook talked about using [[Artificial intelligence|artificial intelligence (AI) technology]] to prevent suicide.

Back in March, Facebook began testing tools to identify users who express thoughts about suicide and provide them with the first necessary help.

The company did not disclose technical details of such a program, but indicated that a "smart" algorithm scans private messages and comments on Facebook for suicidal thoughts. The risk group includes questions like "Is everything all right?" Or "Can I help?."

If the software detects a user who has potentially decided to say goodbye to life, it warns a group of Facebook employees who specialize in processing such messages. The electronic system advises users who are supposedly considering suicide, or their friends, support resources like emergency phone lines. Sometimes local authorities receive requests from Facebook to assist.

As Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on November 27, 2017, in the last month alone, the AI program has helped reach the first suicide-prone users more than 100 times faster than manual processing.

With all the fears about how artificial intelligence can harm humanity in the future, it's good to remind yourself how AI actually helps save people's lives today, Zuckerberg said.

According to Facebook Vice President of Product Management Guy Rosen, in November 2017, an AI system for detecting suicides on social networks began to be deployed outside the United States after successful trials in this country. The company employs people who, if necessary, could call the authorities at any time and talk to their representatives in their native language.^[40]

2015: Belgium: Facebook monitors even those who do not have a profile on this network

On April 1, 2015, the Belgian Commission for the Protection of Personal Data published a report according to which the social network Facebook monitors the actions of users who have the option of monitoring their activity disabled in their account settings, and even those who are not registered on this social network^[41].

The study also revealed that "Internet traces" of people who have left their Facebook account, or do not have a personal profile at all on this social network, are collected using social plugins - primarily through Like buttons built into 13 million third-party sites.

Specialists of the Belgian commission say: the social network monitors actions in the browser through cookies on user devices, from where any page in the domain is accessed facebook.com. Activity monitoring can also occur if a user enters a celebrity page that does not require registration on the resource to access. And tracking is also carried out when there is no interaction with the company's services on third-party resources: for example, the Like button or Facebook account is not used for authorization.

Facebook representatives in a response statement noted the presence of factual inaccuracies in the report and the absence of any contacts between the authors of the report and officials of the social network in the process of analyzing the information. In addition, Facebook did not seek any comment before publishing the results. According to employees of the social network, the company conducted a detailed analysis of inaccuracies in the first version of the study and sent it to the Belgian Data Protection Commission, then offered to clarify the nuances in the process of a joint meeting, but the commission refused to listen to the arguments of company representatives.

2013: Facebook transfers user data to intelligence agencies

Facebook reported in the summer of 2013 on how it satisfies the requests of law enforcement agencies of various states to disclose the data of its users. For the first half of this year, the police of 74 countries made such requests for 38 thousand people.

Most inquiries involve criminal investigations, such as robberies and kidnappings. Usually, government agencies are interested in basic information about users, in particular, the name and time of use of the service. In addition, in some cases, the authorities request the IP addresses of users and the content of their accounts, the company's press service said in a statement.

The absolute record holder for both requests and responses received was the United States, which sent requests for more than 20 thousand users. 79% of requests were granted. In second place, with a noticeable margin, India, from which 3.2 thousand users requested information (of which exactly half were satisfied). And the UK closes the top three with 2.3 thousand requests, 68% of which were satisfied.

Over Russia the past six months, a single request has come to the network administration, but its Facebook administration has also rejected it.

2011

In one of the lands of Germany prohibit the button "I like" in order to protect users

In August 2011, in one of the lands of Germany, the "I like" button on Facebook was banned. The Schleswig-Holstein Land Data Protection Commissioner has issued an executive order removing the "I like" button from all websites within the jurisdiction of that land. Site owners who do not comply with this order risk being fined up to 50 thousand euros. An analysis by the data protection agency showed that data transmitted to Facebook by the "Like" buttons allows you to build user profiles, which violates German data protection laws.

Facebook is confident that there is no violation here. The button collects only IP addresses of visitors to sites that are not Facebook users, and even this information is deleted after 90 days. In the European Union - and especially in Germany - personal data protection laws are much stricter than in the US. This is not the first time Facebook has faced restrictions on German law.

Shortly before that, the Hamburg Data Protection Agency demanded that the company disable the automatic facial recognition function in photos. The EU Advisory Council, too, intends to examine facial recognition features for compliance with European personal data protection laws.

Improving the technology of recognizing people in photos

In 2011, the Facebook social network improved the technology for recognizing people in photos, and now it is available in most countries of the world. The Tag Suggestions function is used to speed up the process of putting names in a photo. When a person uploads a new photo to Facebook, the program scans the photos and compares the image with other pictures where the user is marked. Based on these comparisons, the program recognizes the face of each person and offers to automatically mark on the image. If for some reason the user does not want the program to automatically recognize him, then he can refuse this service by changing the settings in the profile. However, even in this case, it can be marked in the photo manually. You can uncheck at any time.

The new service on Facebook has caused another wave of discussions that the social network is encroaching on people's personal space. However, Facebook emphasizes that the program does not offer the name of everyone who accidentally gets in the photo, but compares the images with the user's photos (and those where he is marked) and recognizes people from the user's friend list. At the same time, Mark Rotenberg, president of the non-profit organization Electronic Privacy Information Center, notes that it is not clear whether these marks in the photo will correlate with the user's personal data in the social network database.

Julian Assange: Facebook network is a US intelligence espionage machine

The social network Facebook provides huge amounts of information to the US mission to spy on its own citizens. The author of the Wikileaks website Julian Assange said this in May 2011 in an interview with the Russian English-language TV channel Russia Today.

In his opinion, Facebook is "the most terrible espionage machine previously created." From the point of view of Assange, Facebook and all other large American sites have the necessary built-in methods for US intelligence officials so that the latter receive information of interest to them about users.

"Information about the names of users, their location at a particular time, information about their correspondence with friends and other communication data are collected together for use by the US government," says Assange.

"This is not a matter of judgment where intelligence agencies have gained access to data arrays to be used to their advantage. Access was initially, it's just that now the US government is more interested in this data than ever, in order to start putting pressure on people who do not like it at a convenient time, "he says in an interview with Russia Today.

Note that the idea of ​ ​ using Facebook as a espionage tool is not new. Earlier, the US Department of Justice admitted that they began to train staff on the use of social networks to collect evidence against anyone. In addition, local authorities in a number of countries have been actively collecting information on social networks for a long time to use them against suspects in certain offenses.

Assange says local authorities use social media as another channel to gather evidence, whereas federal authorities have extensive access to Facebook's entire database to use to examine personal information bypassing court decisions.

"You need to understand that when one of the users adds a person to friends, he already does the work of US intelligence for free," says Assange.

2010: Zuckerberg offered to share user preferences with Open Graph

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg invited other sites to become network partners and share information about user preferences using the Open Graph platform. This can make Facebook a competitor to Google not only in audience, but also in revenue, predicted Alexey Basov. By this time, Facebook has gained a critical mass of users (more than 400 million, the Chinese QZone has 388 million) and investors have a vision that this network personifies the future of the Internet, said Maria Chernitskaya, CEO of the iContext advertising agency.

Notes