Facebook Explains How It Can Collect Data When Users Not Using It

KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 (Bernama) -- Facebook on Tuesday clarified how and what data the social media and social networking service company collect even after the users log out. The clarification was made following Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the US Congress last week where he answered over 500 questions but was unable to answer about 40 questions at the time. "I lead a team focused on privacy and data use, including GDPR compliance and the tools people can use to control and download their information," Facebook product management director, David Baser, said in a statement. Base explained that Facebook does not sell the data received but only uses it to cater content to the users and the social media collects data from various platforms such as apps that let the users log in with a Facebook account. He noted that many websites and apps use Facebook services to make their content and ads more engaging and relevant. The services include social plugins, such as Facebook ‘Like and Share’ buttons, which make other sites more social and help one share content on Facebook, and Facebook login, which lets the users use their Facebook account to log into another website or app. The other two services are Facebook analytics, which helps websites and apps better understand how people use their services, and Facebook ads and measurement tools, which enable websites and apps to show ads from Facebook advertisers, to run their own ads on Facebook or elsewhere, and to understand the effectiveness of their ads. “When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account. This is because other apps and sites don’t know who is using Facebook. “Many companies offer these types of services and, like Facebook, they also get information from the apps and sites that use them. Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn all have similar ‘Like and Share’ buttons to help people share things on their services“ said Base. On what kind of data Facebook gets from the other websites and apps, he said the information it received included the name of the website or app, IP address, browser, types of operating system and site visiting history. He said Facebook’s privacy policy explained in detail what it did with the information it received and it had just updated the policy to make it easier to read. “There are three main ways in which Facebook uses the information we get from other websites and apps: providing our services to these sites or apps; improving safety and security on Facebook; and enhancing our own products and services. “But first I want to be clear that we don’t sell people’s data,” he said. -- BERNAMA