Facebook’s research app invades privacy

Imagine that someone could see every message, picture or video you sent. They could constantly track your location and knew what you were searching online. They even wanted to know what you were buying online and asked to see your receipts. For some teenagers, this “person” was Facebook.

Since 2016 until February 2019, Facebook had been paying people to install a Facebook Research app that allowed the company to capture users’ phone activity for payments of up to $20 a month, according to a TechCrunch report. This app essentially gave Facebook access to all of the user’s internet traffic, such as emails, web browsing activity, location information and private messages in social media apps — including photos and videos sent to others. (It was unclear how many people signed up for the program, but news reports said many teens were particularly vulnerable because of the money offered.)

This effort was just one part of Facebook’s many questionable privacy intrusions, including a similar Facebook app called Onavo Protect, which was banned by Apple in June 2018. Although the Facebook Research app was banned from the App Store and voluntarily removed from the Google Play Store in mid-February, the very fact of its introduction underscored Facebook’s troubles with privacy.

Facebook claimed that they told users specifically what data they were gathering and that the users agreed to it. However, it was certainly questionable whether the users truly understood the invasiveness of the program. The app required users to install a “root certificate,” a complicated term that few probably understood when downloading the app. The certificate basically allowed the company to not only view internet activity, but also encrypted information.

Moreover, Facebook targeted people ages 13 to 35. Through advertisements on Snapchat and Instagram, Facebook attracted audiences with promises of easy money. Although these advertisements ran under a company called uTest, it was later revealed to be connected with Facebook’s research program.

Asking a 13-year-old to consent to this type of application with any degree of responsibility was absurd. In theory, the program required parental consent, but a young teenager looking to make some quick money could have easily found loopholes around the request screen. Minutes later, the teenager would be unknowingly giving all kinds of sensitive information to Facebook.

In looking at apps like this, it is debatable whether companies should be allowed to pay a user to collect data for their own benefit, and how much compensation is adequate. However, there are kinds of information that should never be for sale, and Facebook crossed the line with the app that gives them limitless data. $20 per month was not enough compensation for the amount of information Facebook could collect from the user and the company’s concealment of how they might use the information.

The goal of the program was to track usage habits in order to get a leg up on opponents in the tech industry. But Facebook is now facing punishments from both Google and Apple, including severe restrictions on the apps that Facebook can offer.

This episode emphasized just how far Facebook was willing to go to protect its dominance, even if it meant severely violating not only the policies of the Google Play Store and App Store but also people’s privacy. The pressure to maintain its success was understandable, but Facebook’s strategy clearly falls in the wrong.