New York, – The New York Attorney General’s Office announced on Thursday the opening of an investigation against Facebook for making itself without permission with the contact agendas of 1.5 million users of its social network, when asking them to confirm their email address.
According to a statement, the Prosecutor opened this procedure because Facebook would have collected in this way “hundreds of millions” of email accounts in an improper way to direct personalized advertising within the social network.
When registering in this space, new users receive a confirmation email to certify that address belongs to them.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, in this procedure some of the users would have had to assign their password, which allowed the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg to access their agendas and get their contacts.
“It’s time for Facebook to be responsible for how it manages the personal information of its users,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in the statement.
“Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for user information while benefiting from such data.” Facebook’s announcement that it has collected the agendas of 1.5 million individuals (…) is the last sign that Facebook does not take its role seriously protecting our personal information, “settled the prosecutor.
It is not the first time that the New York office acts against the technology for its handling of the data: in January of this year, James announced another investigation, this time against Apple, for the failure in its “Facetime” program, which allowed to listen and see group call users before they accepted or rejected the call.
In 2018, he acted against Facebook for the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Precisely because of this case it has been known today that Canada has denounced the Californian company, as this country ensures that Facebook refuses to comply with its privacy laws and assume the “responsibility to protect” the information of Canadians, after determining that ” committed serious infractions. “(EFEUSA).
