Facebook today, reinforcing its own policy guidelines, has directed app developers and websites not to share medical, financial, and other sensitive personal consumer data all the while not taking any true action on it.
Some New York officials in charge of probing into this possible privacy breach have said that Facebook has begun restricting third-party apps from sharing sensitive medical information which was previously being done by the social media giant in breach of its own rules.
Linda Lacewell, Superintendent of State Financial Services in a release said, “Facebook instructed app developers and websites not to share medical, financial, and other sensitive personal consumer data but took no steps to police this rule. By continuing to do business with app developers that broke the rule, Facebook put itself in a position to profit from sensitive data that it was never supposed to receive in the first place.”
Facebook analytics is a tool used by app developers to get a free analysis of data to help guide alterations to apps. In return, Facebook also benefits from this data enabling it to display more specific and deeply targeted ads.
According to the investigators of the matter, an app called ‘Flo Health’, which is used to track menstruation cycles fed Facebook this data and informed it whenever a user was to start their period or was considering pregnancy.
