Warner, Rubio Question Facebook’s Zuckerberg Over China’s Access to User Data

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter (pdf) to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, questioning him about crucial data Meta’s Facebook In recent years, platform shared with developers from China.

Warner and Rubio claimed that Facebook knew hundreds of thousands were developers in what it considered to be its community based on company documents and past reporting. “high-risk” China and other countries had easy access to “significant amounts of sensitive user data.” Senators specifically referred to a 2018 New York Times Article It was stated that Facebook had granted privileged access to application programming interfaces to Huawei, OPPO (TCL) and other Chinese device-makers.

Meta, the parent company to Facebook, is currently being sued over claims it improperly shared user data with third parties. A court filing in the case (PDF() Facebook indicated that it had over 244,000 developers located in the countries it considered to be its home. “high-risk” Nations, including China, where there are 86 961 and Russia, where there are 42 078.

Facebook’s internal materials described “high-risk” Nations were those that “may be governed by potentially risky data storage and disclosure rules or be more likely to house malicious actors,” Includes “states known to collect data for intelligence targeting and cyber espionage.”

Facebook has revealed that it works with developers in other countries “high-risk” Countries that include Vietnam, Ukraine, Cuba and Iran.

Warner and Rubio claimed they were “startled to learn” So many Chinese developers had access Facebook data “given that Facebook has never been permitted to operate in the PRC.”

The senators requested Meta to explain its security review process regarding sharing data in China and Russia with developers. Also, to record the information that these Chinese and Russian developers were able to access as well as the times they had access. Meta was also asked by the senators to estimate the number of U.S. Facebook users who had their data shared with developers in the identified countries. “high-risk” nations.

The senators also asked if Meta has any indication that any developers’ access enabled coordinated inauthentic activity, targeting activity, malicious advertising, fraudulent activity, or any other malign behavior by foreign governments.

NTD News reached Meta to get their opinion on the issue. They did not respond when this article was published.

Meta was the subject of a reply letter that Bloomberg shared with Meta the documents detailing Facebook’s data-sharing with developers in “high-risk” Nation “are an artifact from a different product at a different time.”

“Many years ago, we made substantive changes to our platform, shutting down developers’ access to key types of data on Facebook while reviewing and approving all apps that request access to sensitive information,” Meta’s response letter read.

Privacy laws for Facebook

For the past four year, Facebook has been the target of privacy lawsuits. This lawsuit claimed that Facebook inappropriately shared user information with third parties such as Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting company, was under investigation after it was accused of improperly using data from 87 million Facebook users in order to support the 2016 election. “Brexit” vote for the UK to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. After the allegations, the political consulting company For bankruptcy.

While Cambridge Analytica was shut down, the lawsuit against Facebook continues. In addition to their complaints about Cambridge Analytica, the plaintiffs allege Facebook’s practices had compromised their data privacy and that data “may be available on the dark web or in the hands of foreign nationals.”

Meta will be open for business in August In principle, the parties reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit.

In December, both parties had Reached A settlement amount of approximately $725 million was reached. Meta maintained in that settlement agreement that it had not done anything wrong and that its users had agreed to the practices. It did not suffer any actual damages.

From NTD News 

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