Recently, there has been a lot of questioning about whether Facebook respects users' privacy, and once again, a study comes out showing that the social media can even identify Android users who don't have the app.
According to a new study by Privacy International, Facebook can usually track users, non-users and logged out users outside of its platform. Specifically, app developers share data with Facebook through the Facebook Software Development Kit (SDK), which is a set of software development tools that help build applications for a specific operating system, as the findings showed. Most worryingly, the detailed scrutiny that Facebook carries out against users is constantly increasing, as the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed.
For its latest study, Privacy International analyzed 34 Android , each with an install base of between 10 million and 500 million. The apps studied were particularly popular, such as Duolingo, Tripadvisor, and Skyscanner. The researchers analyzed the data transferred from these apps to Facebook via the Facebook SDK. It should be noted that all the apps were tested between August and December 2018. The results of the study showed that data is transferred directly to Facebook from the moment the user opens the app. The most striking of the findings was that this happened whether or not the users had an account. According to the report, the data automatically transferred to Facebook is shared with a unique tracker, the Google advertising ID (AAID). The primary goal of advertising IDs, such as Google's, is to allow advertisers to link data about user behavior across different apps and web browsing into a profile of users. However, Google stated that users can disable ad personalization through the control settings in their Google accounts, so there is no illegality on its part.
Additionally, Facebook responded to Privacy International that data sharing is a common practice among companies and is useful for both users and companies, so that everyone understands what users want. This will also make applications and social media much better.
However, privacy protection organizations are not convinced by the companies' statements and continue to report suspicious movements that are observed.
