INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Concerns around Facebook recently revealed data sharing relationship with some device makers just took a turn for the worse
The practice, first revealed over the weekend, is now confirmed to have included relationships with Chinese companies Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo
and TCL, according to The New York Times
government has longstanding national security concerns over Huawei, Facebook newly revealed data deal with the Chinese company has raised
some eyebrows in Congress.
&Concerns about Huawei aren&t new & they were widely publicized beginning in 2012, when the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence released a well-read report on the close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment
Senator Mark Warner said of the revelation
Warner serves as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
&The news that Facebook provided privileged access to
Facebook API to Chinese device makers like Huawei and TCL raises legitimate concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how Facebook
ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers.&
In that report, the House Intelligence Committee wrote that
&Huawei did not fully cooperate with the investigation and was unwilling to explain its relationship with the Chinese government or Chinese
Communist Party, while credible evidence exists that it fails to comply with U.S
laws& and that Huawei history indicated that it likely had ties to the Chinese military.
Earlier in the day, the Senate Commerce Committee
addressed a letter to Facebook over the broader issue of these manufacturer relationships and questioning Facebook assertion that the shared
data was not abused.As the New York Times reports, these relationships date back &at least 2010& — the relative dark ages of Facebook
mobile strategy.It does not appear that ZTE had a similar agreement with Facebook.
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Facebook has disputed the
characterization of these relationships as a privacy scandal, emphasizing that it imposed tight restrictions on this class of device
integration.
These integrations are very different from our public APIs — the goal was to recreate Facebook-like experiences on these
devices, and they were tightly controlled.
— Facebook (@facebook) June 5, 2018
Facebook told the New York Times that while the
partnerships have been ongoing for years, the company would end its relationship with Huawei by the week end.
