Facebook denies tracking non-users

Facebook has denied claims it wants to track people who do not have an account with the social media website.

However, it admitted that it did “find a bug that may have sent ‘cookies’ to some people” when they were not on Facebook.

A report was carried out on behalf of the Belgian Privacy Commission by a number of research teams after Facebook unveiled its new policies and terms on January 30. The researchers said Facebook had authorised itself to track its users across websites and devices; use profile pictures for both commercial and non-commercial purposes; and collect information about its users’ whereabouts on a continuous basis.

While it said the changes introduced “weren’t all that drastic” and most of the new policies and terms were “simply old practices made more explicit”, the report states that Facebook could be acting in violation of European law.

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In response, Facebook’s vice-president of policy in Europe, Richard Allan, said the company’s privacy experts and engineers had been analysing claims made in the report before issuing a “list of corrections and clarifications for a number of misstatements”.

On the claim that Facebook wanted to use social plug-ins to add cookies to the browsers of people who don’t use its site, it said: “We don’t and this is not our practice. However, the researchers did find a bug that may have sent cookies to some people when they weren’t on Facebook. This was not our intention— a fix for this is already under way. Our practice is not to place cookies on the browsers of people who have visited sites with social plug-ins but who have never visited Facebook.com to sign up for an account.

“The authors identified a few instances when cookies may have been placed, and we began to address those inadvertent cases as soon as they were brought to our attention.”

Social plugins are applications such as the like button, share button, and comments on Facebook.

The website rejected claims it does not respect people’s choice to opt out of “behavioural” ads when they visit websites and apps off of Facebook. It said if someone opts out, “we no longer use information about the websites and apps”.

It also denied a claim that apps have access to people’s friends lists by default, saying people can control what third-party apps can see and share.

“Before people log in to an app, we ask them to approve the information the app can receive from their account — nothing is sent until you approve it,” Mr Allan said.

Facebook also rejected an assertion it doesn’t provide controls over the sharing of location information and that it is “all or nothing”.

“You control whether to share location information with Facebook, and we don’t store a history of your precise location unless you give us permission,” Mr Allan said, adding that people could turn off the location setting on their phone at any time.

“Although certain location-enabled services may be affected, people can continue using Facebook.”

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