Facebook has confirmed it has data sharing agreements in place with the Chinese companies Huawei, Oppo, TCL and Lenovo. The deals allowed the Chinese firms to access some user data to help them build Facebook "experiences" on their own platforms, said Facebook, adding that all the data collected remained on users' phones and not on partners’ servers. The announcement follows the recent report that the social media giant allowed over 60 device makers to have “deep” access to users’ personal data without their consent.
In a statement replying to concerns from US Congress, Facebook again denied that data of users’ friends could have been accessed without their explicit consent and that more than half of the partnerships have already been phased out. It added that it would end the partnerships with Chinese firms, starting with the Huawei agreement later this week.
US Senator Mark Warner had earlier asked Facebook if Huawei was among the companies that received user data. “The news that Facebook provided privileged access to Facebook’s API to Chinese device makers like Huawei and TCL raises legitimate concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” he said, according to Reuters.
