Facebook is hit by another privacy scandal. There’s been revealed that a Photo API bug just gave app developers too much access to the photos of about 6.8 million users.
Bug-related details
The official post says that “the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories.”
The developers at Facebook claim they have fixed the issue, but because of this bug, some third-party apps may have accessed a broader set of photos than usual for 12 days sometime between September 13 and September 25.
They said that when someone offers permission for an application to access their pics on Facebook, they usually only grant the app access to the photos that have been shared by users on their timeline. Now, in this case, the bug might have given developers access to other images such as the ones shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories.
“The bug also impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post. For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn’t finish posting it – maybe because they’ve lost reception or walked into a meeting – we store a copy of that photo, so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post,” the official post notes.
Facebook apologized
Facebook apologized that such a thing could happen and promised that they would roll out various tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people who are using their apps might have been infected by this horrible bug.
They also said that the developers at Facebook are working with the apps’ developers to delete the photos that were leaked from affected users.
Tech Crunch claims that the bug did not impact the pics that have been privately shared via Messenger. This bug did not expose pics that users haven’t uploaded to Facebook from their cameras or computers.
After finishing Theatrical Journalism at the Faculty of Theatre and Television in Cluj-Napoca, Rada reviewed movies, books, theatre pieces and she also wrote articles from the IT niche as a content editor for software producers. At the moment, she is working with various online advertising firms.
