Some Facebook apps access sensor data continuously

The negative news and warnings on Facebook don’t seem to really be tearing off these days. The company has been discussed for weeks, and the lack of efforts in the fight against hatred and division in society has been widely criticized. It doesn’t help much if the company invests billions of dollars a year in security measures or wants to nudge Instagram users in the right direction.

The scandals are unlikely to end with a new name either, as security researchers recently examined Facebook’s apps and the data they collect about their users on a daily basis. Astonishing: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp like to access the sensors of the smartphone, the researchers warn that such a detailed movement profile could be recorded without GPS tracking.

Although you can theoretically deactivate the query and use of the location, it is already known that Facebook continues to use the metadata of your images to determine your location. The thing about the motion sensors is new, but it is an immense intrusion into the privacy of the user.

For example, user 1 could have shared his GPS with Facebook and be on the same bus with you. Now the motion sensors are evaluated on both devices and if they match, the probability is high that Facebook also knows that you are on this bus. Transparency is also a foreign word here, the behavior is nowhere simply described, users have no chance to deactivate the option.

WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook use access differently. WhatsApp only wants to optimally display dynamic background images, while Instagram strangely enough only accesses the data when writing direct messages. The Facebook app, on the other hand, is hungrier and uses the information provided by the smartphone every second of use.

So far, the user has not been able to decide which apps can access the end device’s sensors; this is where Apple comes into play and should allow further granular setting options with one of the next operating system versions. Because this could protect fairly sensitive data, for a company that constantly writes data protection on its forehead, the subsequent delivery of the settings should therefore not be a major problem.

Via Forbes