MUMBAI: Facebook’s data controversy is engulfing numerous companies including many renowned ones in India. India’s largest telecom Bharti Airtel and music streaming app Saavn were among the firms that could have accessed data of Facebook even after 2015. This revelation has come to light based on submissions made by Facebook to the US Congress.
In the submission, Facebook named Airtel and 51 other companies for having an “integration partnership”. Facebook authorised those companies to access its user data in order to “recreate Facebook-like experiences”. However, Airtel has claimed the deal ended in 2013.
"Integration partners were not permitted to use data received through Facebook APIs for independent purposes unrelated to the approved integration without user consent," Facebook said in the reported submission.
Saavn was also among the companies which could access details of Facebook users’ friends. While the social media platform announced that data access would be blocked from May 2015, Saavn along with some other app developers were given extra time to become compliant with Facebook’s more restrictive platform API (application programming interface) policy.
“Such access to information about an app user’s friends required not only the consent of the app user, but also required that the friends whose data would be accessed have their own privacy settings set to permit such access by third-party apps,” Facebook said.
Since the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook has been facing tough times regarding data security.
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