Facebook says up to 100 developers may have accessed Groups members’ data

Facepalm: It felt like Facebook was overdue another privacy issue, so here we are. The social network has announced that a number of third-party apps from up to 100 developers might have accessed Groups members’ data without permission.

In its post, Facebook writes that while Group administrators are able to use third-party apps to get information such as the Group name, number of users, and content of posts, the ability to access details including individual members’ names, profile pictures, or other profile data was removed in April 2018. But the company has discovered that some apps retained access.

Facebook says 11 developers were able to gain Group members’ information in the last 60 days. The company has now cut off developers’ access to the data and will ask the partners to delete any member information they may have retained. It will also conduct audits to confirm it has been deleted.

Facebook stresses that it’s seen no evidence of abuse, and while it never named the 100 developers or any of the apps, it said they were mostly social media management and video streaming apps, “designed to make it easier for group admins to manage their groups more effectively and help members share videos to their groups.”

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year, which saw up to 87 million users’ profile data scraped, Facebook suspended thousands of apps as it tried to deal with the fallout.