Facebook today tried to quietly announce a bug it discovered on its platform. Essentially, between September 13 to September 25, 2018, certain third-party apps were given access to users’ photos beyond what they were supposed have. In fact, the screw-up gave the developers access to users’ photos they uploaded to Facebook but didn’t actually post.
Facebook says the problem impacted as many 6.8 million users who used around 1,500 apps. These were all apps Facebook approved to use its photo API.
It’s just the latest in a series of privacy blunders for Facebook. Beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company admitted to a security breach involving about 50 million users last October. Not only that, but this problem happened over two months ago, and the company is only now owning up to it.
Yesterday, Facebook’s VP of marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, told Digiday, “We care deeply, as deep as a company can care about privacy. It’s the foundation of our company, and we want people to know that we care.” As time goes on, statements like these sound more hollow.
Facebook says it will be informing both developers and users involved in this bug. “We are also recommending people log into any apps with which they have shared their Facebook photos to check which photos they have access to,” the company wrote.
We’ll see what privacy or security blunder the company cops to next week.
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