Washington — Facebook said on Tuesday it has
data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese companies,
including Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, which has
come under scrutiny from US intelligence agencies on security concerns.
The social media company said Huawei, computer maker Lenovo Group,
and smartphone makers OPPO and TCL Corp were among about 60 companies
worldwide that received access to some user data after they signed
contracts to recreate Facebook-like experiences for their users.
Members of Congress raised concerns after The New York Times reported
on the practice on Sunday, saying that data of users’ friends could
have been accessed without their explicit consent.
Facebook denied that and said the data access was to allow its users to access account features on mobile devices.
More than half of the partnerships had already been wound down,
Facebook said. It said on Tuesday it would end the Huawei agreement
later this week. It is ending the other three partnerships with Chinese
firms as well.
Chinese telecommunications companies have come under scrutiny from US
intelligence officials who argue they provide an opportunity for
foreign espionage and threaten critical US infrastructure, something the
Chinese have consistently denied.
Senator Mark Warner, vice-chairman of the intelligence committee, who
asked Facebook if Huawei was among the companies that received user
data, said in a statement that the House of Representatives intelligence
committee had raised concerns about Huawei dating back in 2012.
"The news that Facebook provided privileged access to
Facebook’s API [application program interface] 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," Warner said.
Application program interface essentially specifies how software components should interact.
A Facebook executive said the company had carefully managed the access it gave to the Chinese companies.
"Facebook, along with many other US tech companies, has worked with
them and other Chinese manufacturers to integrate their services onto
these phones," Francisco Varela, vice-president of mobile partnerships
for Facebook, said in a statement. "Facebook’s integrations with Huawei,
Lenovo, OPPO and TCL were controlled from the get-go — and we approved
the Facebook experiences these companies built."
Varela said that "given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make
clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was
stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers."
Response demanded from Zuckerberg.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Senate commerce committee demanded that
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg respond to a report that user data was
shared with at least 60 device manufacturers, weeks after the social
media company said it would change its practices after a political firm
got access to data from millions of users.
Senators John Thune, the committee’s Republican chairman, and Bill
Nelson, the ranking Democrat, on Tuesday wrote to Zuckerberg after The
New York Times reported that manufacturers were able to access data of
users’ friends even if the friends denied permission to share the
information with third parties.
In April, the federal communications commission proposed new rules
that would bar purchases by government programmes from companies that it
said posed a security threat to US telecoms networks, a move aimed at
Huawei and ZTE Corp, China’s number two telecommunications equipment
maker. The Pentagon in May ordered retail outlets on US military bases
to stop selling Huawei and ZTE phones, citing potential security risks.
ZTE was not among the firms that received access to Facebook data, but it has been the subject of US national security concerns.
The letter asks if Facebook audited partnerships with the device
manufacturers under a 2011 consent order with the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC). It also asked if Zuckerberg wanted to revise his
testimony before the Senate in April.
Facebook said it looked forward to addressing any questions the commerce committee had.
Facebook still has not answered hundreds of written questions
submitted from members of Congress after Zuckerberg’s testimony in
April, according to congressional staff.
The data sharing mentioned in the Times story was used over the past
decade by about 60 companies, including Amazon.com, Apple, Blackberry,
HTC, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics, Ime Archibong, Facebook
vice-president of product partnerships, wrote in a blog post on June 3.
The Federal Trade Commission confirmed in March that it was investigating Facebook’s privacy practices.
Facebook allowed Apple and other device makers to have "deep" access
to users’ personal data without their consent, according to the Times.
The Times said Facebook allowed companies access to the data of
users’ friends without their explicit consent, even after it had
declared it would no longer share the information with outsiders.
Archibong said the data was shared with device makers in order to improve Facebook users’ access to the information.
"These partners signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook
information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate
Facebook-like experiences."
Regulators and authorities in several countries have increased
scrutiny of Facebook after it failed to protect the data of about
87-million users that was shared with now-defunct political data firm
Cambridge Analytica.
Two Democrats on the Senate commerce committee, Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal, on Monday also wrote to Zuckerberg.
Archibong said the cases were "very different" from the use of data by third-party developers in the Cambridge row.
New York attorney-general Barbara Underwood said on Monday the
"data-sharing partnerships with other corporations" was part of the
ongoing investigation into the reported misuse of Facebook user data by
Cambridge Analytica.
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