Facebook says 100 app developers may have access to its users' data

Just days after social media giant, Facebook, confirmed Data-sharing agreements with Chinese Tech companies, Facebook stated on November 6 that approximately 100 app developers may have had access to its users' data for the past couple of months, giving a confirmation that at least 11 partners accessed the information in the last 2 months. The Mark Zuckerburg led company revealed that the apps accessing information were mainly social media management and video streaming applications that continued to access the group member information such as users' pictures, names in connection with group activity taken from the group's API(application programming interface).

"No particular evidence of abuse"

In a statement, Facebook stated that there was no particular evidence of abuse and will ask the concerned app developers to delete any user data that they have held back and will conduct inspections to determine that the data has been deleted or not.

Facebook further added that they have taken down and put restrictions on a number of application programming interfaces' such as the group API, which establishes an interface between Facebook and applications that can merge with a group. 

According to Facebook, the applications were designed to serve as an easier pathway for the admins to manage their groups in a more efficient way and help the group members share videos with their groups. 

Facebook further added by giving an example that if a business had to manage a community or a lot of people spread across multiple groups, they could do that by using a social media management application to provide customer service at a very large scale. The social media giant stated that while the access provided benefits to people and groups on their website, they took the decision of taking it down.

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A $5 billion fine by the FTC

Mark Zuckerburg and his company have been heavily criticized after data of 87 million users were accessed by Cambridge Analytica and with that, the FTC(Federal Trade Commission) imposed a $5 billion fine on Facebook.

Facebook's director of platform partnerships, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, stated that the new guidelines and the framework under the tabled agreement with the Federal Trade Commission meant that the company had to ensure more accountability and transparency into how it makes and maintains its products.

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A revelation by Facebook

Social media giant, Facebook, recently made the revelation that it was involved in data sharing practices with Chinese technology companies. These companies also included popular smartphone maker, Huawei, which has long been subject to official investigations by American intelligence firms on security issues plaguing Huawei.

Reportedly, the Mark Zuckerburg led company stated that OPPO and Huawei were some of the names who had access to Facebook's user data after a legal agreement was signed to replicate the exact same social media experience for their respective users. According to reports, numerous concerns were raised about how the data was extracted and used without the prior consent of different users. Facebook has refuted the claims and stated that the sharing of data was to provide its users to have access to different account features on smartphones.

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(With inputs from agencies)