Viral tweets exploded across the internet after a group of users in March claimed Facebook was tracking their texts and phone calls.
Oh wow my deleted Facebook Zip file contains info on every single phone cellphone call and text I made for about a year- cool totally not creepy.
— Mat Johnson (@mat_johnson) March 23, 2018
As it turns out, they were right. The Facebook app will track the location, date, and duration of any text or phone call made on an Android phone, so long as the owner has chosen to share his contacts with the Facebook app. Fortunately for iPhone users, the app does not collect their call or text logs because Apple’s operating system doesn’t allow most apps to collect call and text metadata.
Facebook has stressed that it only connects to personal phone contacts when users grant permission. “Contact importers are fairly common among social apps and services as a way to more easily find the people you want to connect with,” the company said in a statement.
Ars Technica reported that some Android users, though, inadvertently authorized Facebook to access their full call and text data before Facebook implemented Messenger-SMS integration.
The Facebook app also asked users for permission to read contacts so that it could recommend more Facebook friends. In old versions of the Android operating system, that permission also authorized apps to read text and call metadata.
Facebook has yet to clarify how may users might have been affected, but three users have already filed a lawsuit claiming a violation of their rights to privacy.
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