Ahead of this afternoon’s Facebook announcement comes a serious claim about how, surprise surprise, Facebook deals with our data. First, The Guardian pointed out that the Facebook iPhone app uploads personal phone numbers without asking if you’re using earlier versions of the Facebook iPhone app – the current version gives you a slightly confused warning. Then, we followed the trail to the Apple App Store guidelines, which have caused many an app to be rejected for not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, and found that Facebook could have breached the guidelines on at least two counts.
Here at Electricpig towers, we didn’t realise we were uploading this info, although it’s not clear yet how recently the sync warning was added (we’ve asked Facebook for clarification). If you are using an older version of the Facebook iPhone app, it asks if you would like to add profile pictures and links to contacts, which, if you say yes, results in phone numbers from those individuals being uploaded onto Facebook. That looks like it broke the Apple App Store rules for admission. Firstly, it could be construed as a hidden feature, which we all know is not allowed. Secondly, it was transmitting data without a user’s consent.
