Author: George Nickels
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. With over 2 billion active monthly users, maybe that is why it’s difficult for Facebook to keep track of all the data they hold on individuals.
For years, the company has come under fire for its role in data privacy, but its engineers may have been unaware of where the company stored people’s data. A new report sheds light on a shocking revelation about Facebook’s practices. Read on to find out more about this story.
Cambridge Analytica Scandal and Facebook Hearing
The hearing for the continuing case about the improper handling of private user information resulting from the Cambridge Analytica scandal took place in March. The court questioned two senior Facebook engineers about the company’s extensive data harvesting operations.
The hearing was called to resolve two critical issues. The first one referred to the information Facebook collects from its users. The second one was about the storage of that information.
The admissions took place during a hearing with a specialist Daniel Garrie, whose job was to break a disclosure deadlock.
Garrie aimed to persuade the firm to give a clear report of where personal data might be kept in about 55 Facebook subsystems.
Both senior Facebook engineers, who had twenty years of experience, hesitated to even guess what might be in Facebook’s subsystems.
Dina El-Kassaby, a representative for Meta, said that it was not surprising that a single programmer could not know where all users data is stored. She said that Meta works to protect user data.
The Dispute over Facebook’s Data Storage
The disagreement over Facebook’s data storage practices began when the court-appointed Facebook to turn over data it had gathered about the lawsuit’s plaintiffs as part of the case. The corporation obliged. However, the information it provided was mainly drawn from the “Download Your Information” feature that was available to the general public.
Facebook argued that any information outside this set was not subject to the lawsuit. In addition, the corporation ignored the information it collects through assumptions, outside partnerships, and other private analyses of “our behavior” — aspects of the social media platform’s internal operations hidden from users. What we refer to as “Facebook” is a collection of specialized applications that collaborate when we upload movies, share images, or receive targeted advertising.
The social network aimed to prevent litigation over data storage in those non-consumer areas of Facebook.
The judge rejected the company’s argument in 2020. He claimed that Facebook’s original disclosure had indeed been insufficient. Furthermore, he stated that the business must disclose information collected from its vast capacity to track users across the internet and anticipate their future behavior.
Final Words
Facebook users have grown\ to rely on the social platform for communication, marketing, and news. Nevertheless, Facebook has gotten into several privacy scandals, with allegations that the company unlawfully collects and uses users’ data for all sorts of practices. Recently, Facebook engineers claim they don’t know where the service stores all the personal data.
