According to Sherman, Facebook’s goal is to make its ‘explicit’. Source: Shutterstock/pixinoo

Facebook closes data backdoor previously exploited by cops for surveillance

By | 14 March, 2017

FACEBOOK Inc. barred software developers on Monday from using the massive social network’s data to create surveillance tools, closing off a process which had been exploited by US police departments to track protesters.

Facebook, its Instagram unit and rival Twitter Inc. came under fire last year from privacy advocates after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a report police were using location data and other user information to spy on protesters in places such as Ferguson, Missouri.

In response to the report, the companies shut off the data access of Geofeedia, a Chicago-based data vendor which said it works with organizations to “leverage social media,” but Facebook policy had not explicitly barred such use of data in the future.

“Our goal is to make our policy explicit,” Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer Rob Sherman said in a post on the social network on Monday. He was not immediately available for an interview.

The change would help build “a community where people can feel safe making their voices heard,” Sherman said.

SEE ALSO: WhatsApp cycles back on privacy policy, will share certain data with Facebook

Racially charged protests broke out in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in the aftermath of the August 2014 shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white policeman.

In a 2015 email message, a Geofeedia employee touted its “great success” covering the protests, according to the ACLU report based on government records.

Geofeedia representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday. The company has worked with more than 500 law enforcement agencies, the ACLU said.

Geofeedia chief executive officer Phil Harris said in October the company was committed to privacy and would work to build on civil rights protections.

Major social media platforms including Twitter and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube have taken action or implemented policies similar to Facebook’s, said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California.

Ozer praised the companies’ action but said they should have stopped such use of data earlier.

“It shouldn’t take a public records request from the ACLU for these companies to know what their developers are doing,” she said.

It was also unclear how the companies would enforce their policies, said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, a nonprofit that opposes government use of social media for surveillance.

Inside corporations, “is the will there, without constant activist pressure, to enforce these rules?” Cyril said. – Reuters 



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