Beware of the Facebook App

So we have known for some time now that Facebook is a huge lover of people’s data, they have often been slated in the past for taking data belonging to people and sharing it with people who shouldn’t have access to it however today on a Google Hangout with Geek.com’s very own Russell Holly, CyanogenMod legend’s Steve Kondik and Koushik Dutta it was revealed that Facebook are doing more than they should be permitted to (in theory).

So what are they doing then? Well it seems that just by downloading the app Facebook are uploading your phone number to their servers REGARDLESS of whether or not you have logged in to the app.

Now I mentioned about that this was “in theory” and that’s simply because they technically aren’t doing anything wrong. When you download the Facebook app you give access to a number of permissions, one of which is:

READ PHONE STATUS AND IDENTITY
Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a call is active, and the remote number connected by a call.

Now obviously you would assume that you would need to log into the app for them to take that but it seems not.

What makes this slightly alarming though is the number of phones that ship with Facebook pre-installed and some of which you are not able to remove it, so this is where it gets messy. Just by having the app they have the permissions so the question is, should OEM’s stop adding this to phones and taking away the right of the end user to not share data with a company they may not want to be associated with?

Share your thoughts below and lets discuss this a little further.

Via: Landofdroid