As many as one in three Australians may have had phone calls and text messages tracked by Facebook for years.

The social behemoth confirmed it did log mobile phone calls and text history for users of Messenger on Facebook Lite on Android, however said users had to “expressly agree” to handing over the information.

“Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. This helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about, and provides you with a better experience across Facebook,” the company said in a statement.

“If, at any time, they no longer wish to use this feature they can turn it on in settings…and all previously shared call and text history via that app is deleted.”

This revelation is the latest controversy facing the beleaguered company which is staring down three international inquiries and four lawsuits over sharing information of 50 million users with political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.

The logged calls was discovered by Facebook users as they downloaded information shared on the social network in preparation for deleting their accounts in response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The data archives included logs detailing every mobile phone call they had made through their regular phone carrier, with duration of calls, time of calls and identity of callers all logged.

Even missed mobile phone calls were listed in the data.

Data on SMS messages sent from mobile phones was also collected.

Facebook confirmed it had collected the information from its Google Android Messenger app in 2015.

“We introduced this feature for Android users a couple of years ago. Contact importers are fairly common among social apps and services as a way to more easily find the people you want to connect with,” the social platform said in a statement.

Australians are one of the biggest users of Facebook’s Messenger service, with 13m users as of October last year.

When combined with a high number of Google Android phone users, with around 65 percent of Australian mobile phone users operating an Android device according to Statista, it suggests as many as 33 percent of Australians may have had their call and SMS data collected by the social giant.

Facebook has stressed it did not “collect the content of your calls or text messages”.

“Your information is securely stored and we do not sell this information to third parties,” a statement said.

To check if your phones and text data has been captured, you can request a copy of your account archive by clicking the arrow at the top right of any Facebook page, choose settings and click “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the page.