Facebook has been collecting your call and text data for years: report

Facebook, after facing a lot of criticism after the Cambridge Analytica revelations, has now been hit with a fresh controversy. Users have found out that the social media giant collected their personal data such as contact numbers and text messages from Android phones. According to a report from arsTECHNICA, users found years of call history, contacts and text messages scraped away.

Facebook's excuse

The company in response to the reports said that the call and SMS data was uploaded to secure servers and come only from Android users who opt to allow the sync of data. The company also emphasized that the data is collected in order "to improve people's experience across Facebook," and is not shared or sold with other third-party apps. The company claims that it doesn't collect the content of the text messages or calls.

"Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. This helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about and provide you with a better experience across Facebook. People have to expressly agree to use this feature. If, at any time, they no longer wish to use this feature they can turn it off in settings, or here for Facebook Lite users, 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," a Facebook spokesperson stated in a blog post.

How to avoid?

Users can turn off the data collection from the settings menu, and all the previously accumulated call and text history will be deleted from the servers, Facebook said. The feature was introduced on Facebook Messenger in 2015 and was added to Facebook Lite later.

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Breach of trust

The news comes a week after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a British company associated with Donald Trump's presidential campaign, retained private data from 50 million Facebook users while claiming to have deleted it. Many users and politicians in response and even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are calling it a 'breach of trust.'

Earlier, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the Cambridge Analytica scandal by putting out ads in US and UK Sunday newspapers.

The ads suggest that a quiz app built by a Cambridge University researcher leaked Facebook data of millions of users four years ago.