According to a new document from Facebook, the company continued to share users’ data with more companies than it had previously disclosed.

This latest revelation, which was made to the US Congress, is meant to answer the many questions left unanswered by Mark Zuckerberg when he testified earlier this year. The US House of Congress Energy and Commerce Committee has made some of the information public, revealing that Facebook granted some companies special rights to access users’ data.

A total of 52 technology companies are listed in the document as having had special access to users’ data. Worryingly, Chinese firms Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, and TCL were included on that list. Previously, US intelligence agencies have raised suspicions about these companies due to their link to the Chinese government and accusations of espionage. 61 companies were given one-off extensions to existing data sharing agreements, including for friends data, after the rules were tightened up in 2015. It remains unclear why these companies were granted time extensions to adapt to the new restrictions.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has excused its behaviour saying that its sharing arrangement was intended to ensure that its Facebook app operated on a variety of platforms. Democratic Representative Frank Pallone Jr, a member of the Committee, doubtful of this explanation said: “After initial review, I am concerned that Facebook’s responses raise more questions than they answer.”

Facebook Bug Unblocks Users

The company has just been rocked by yet another scandal, which saw a bug impact around 800,000 users. The bug, which was live from May 29th until June 5th silently unblocked some people from the user’s blocked list. This meant that unblocked individuals would be able to contact users via the messenger or try to re-friend the person who had blocked them.

Visible user data is stored on the platform in pairs called ‘associations’ and according to Facebook the bug mistakenly deleted some of the associations, which control what posts people can see and the actions they can take, resulting in the lost blocks.

Facebook says it will be sending out a notification to anyone they believe was affected by the bug. For stalking and abuse victims this latest fiasco is likely to rock their trust in the platform.

Another Facebook Fail

Last week, it was revealed that yet another quiz app left 120 million Facebook Users’ data exposed. Researcher and ethical hacker, Inti De Ceukelaire, discovered that a third-party app called NameTests left user data exposed and easily discoverable.

De Ceukelaire wrote, “depending on what quizzes you took, the javascript could leak your Facebook ID, first name, last name, language, gender, date of birth, profile picture, cover photo, currency, devices you use, when your information was last updated, your posts and statuses, your photos and your friends.”

He described and reported the flaw to Facebook’s Data Abuse Bounty programme in April. However, the company took eight days to respond to the information and said it would take a between three and six months to investigate. It took Facebook a month to fix the issue and had to be chased to fulfil its bounty promise.

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