The Facebook Android app could be taking a record of every call and text on your Android smartphone. If you are using the Facebook app on your Android smartphone then it is possible that your call and text records are being by the Facebook App. This was discovered by a software developer Dylan McKay that the Facebook app is scraping the call logs and the text metadata while he was downloading the account data under settings.
Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file
Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum pic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
Ars Technica has confirmed this report when it found the similar information when downloading the account data. It is worth noting that on newer versions of Android, Facebook is not collecting users’ call logs and text metadata, this all is happening after getting the access to that information in the Android’s permission structure with the user’s consent.
In reply to these allegations, Facebook said that the call and text history was an opt-in feature on Facebook Lite app and on the Messenger app and you have to agree to the feature expressly. Facebook added that turning off the feature will also delete the information which has been collected by the app. The company also said that they never sold the data to anyone and the app only collects the data after actual consent of the user.
This is not that shocking revelation that users have granted the permission to the Facebook app. Facebook has been accused of data mining according to the reports coming out recently. So, to take care of your sensitive data, read what permission the app is asking for before allowing that permission request.
