Class action filed against Facebook over Android metadata collection

Facebook Inc. is facing another class action suit in Ontario over how it handles user privacy in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal – this time, specifically over how it collected and used Android phone metadata. The proposed class action was filed in August at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto and alleges the social media giant scraped call and text logs from users of Android mobile phones without their consent. The claim, launched by a Belleville, Ont. resident, seeks damages from Facebook, alleging that it violated users’ privacy through collecting data from phones running the Android operating system, which is developed and maintained by Alphabet Inc.’s Google. It alleges that for years, until October 2017, Facebook had scraped call and text metadata -- names, phone numbers, call time and length, and information about texts -- “surreptitiously” and “without permission” from Android smartphone users running its apps. None of the claims have been proven in court and the case has not yet been certified as a class action by a judge. A statement of defence has not yet been filed. Facebook declined to provide comment for this story, but referred The Wire Report to a company blog post from March 25 this year, titled “Fact Check: Your Call and SMS History,” which was a response to news stories about its Android metadata collection practices. The post denies that the company was surreptitiously logging users’ call and text history “without their permission.” It said call metadata logging is “part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android” used for its friend recommendation service. “People have to expressly agree to use this feature,” the post said. “If, at any time, they no longer wish to use this feature they can turn it off in settings ... and all previously shared call and text history shared via that app is deleted. While we receive certain permissions from Android, uploading this information has always been opt-in only.” It goes on to say Facebook will “never sell this data” and the feature “does not collect the content of your text messages or calls.” The legal claim takes issue with the way the social media company had set its default installation settings for its apps, whether it was truly an opt-in and whether users knew what they were agreeing to, among other things. The claim points back to a March 24, 2018 story by the technology news website Ars Technica, which had documented the surprise of some users discovering that Facebook was logging their Android phone metadata – revelations that happened because all the drama related to Cambridge Analytica had heightened attention on user data protection practices. The news article said even if users didn't give permission to Facebook to collect the data, they may have given it away “inadvertently for years” because of how old versions of Android used to handle permissions for accessing call logs. The class action claim said silent call and text data-logging was never a problem on Apple Inc.’s phones running its iOS. The lawyer representing the suit, Douglas Lennox of Klein Lawyers LLP, declined to comment about the case. He did not say how many people are currently involved in the class action. Another Canadian class action claim was launched in May this year against Facebook in Ontario Superior Court over how the social media company handled user data. The Toronto Star reported at the time it was the second time a class action was filed against Facebook directly related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which stemmed from data harvested from a personality quiz app. That claim, which came on the heels of a similar U.S. suit, has yet to be certified as a class action and Facebook has yet to file its defence. A spate of similar class actions were launched this year in the U.S. against Facebook directly related to the Cambridge Analytica data sharing drama. Facebook addressed those various class actions in its June 2018 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Beginning on March 20, 2018, multiple putative class actions and derivative actions were filed in state and federal courts in the United States and elsewhere against us and certain of our directors and officers alleging violations of securities laws, breach of fiduciary duties, and other causes of action in connection with the misuse of certain data by a developer that shared such data with third parties in violation of our terms and policies, and seeking unspecified damages and injunctive relief,” it said. “We believe these lawsuits are without merit, and we are vigorously defending them.” — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

Class action filed against Facebook over Android metadata collection

News | September 17, 2018

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Class action filed against Facebook over Android metadata collection

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