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June 05, 2025

Towards the end of February, anexposé fromThe Wall Street Journalilluminated how several high-profile iOS apps were sharing sensitive data of their users withFacebook. Even if these users didn’t have Facebook profiles, Facebook was still getting the information.

Now, some new research conducted byPrivacy International(viaThe Verge) shows that other Android and iOS apps are engaged in this practice as well, two of which are household names: consumer reviews siteYelpand language-learning softwareDuolingo.

The Facebook logo on a blue background.

Privacy International also found that popular job search appIndeedengages in this practice, along with two Muslim prayer apps and a bible app.

As with the previous exposé, Privacy International shows that simplypulling yourself off Facebookdoesn’t necessarily mean Facebook isn’t getting data related to your habits.

This quote from the Privacy International article perfectly sums up the gravity of the situation:

To Facebook’s credit, many of these examples of apps sharing user data aren’t Facebook’s fault, at least not directly. In some cases, the app developers send data to Facebook because Facebook’s tools to examine that data can be better than other systems. The fact that Facebook can now access this data is merely a side-effect of this process.

Facebook argues that the onus is on app developers — not Facebook — to verify any sensitive data is collected properly and used legally, even if that data is now available for Facebook’s use.

Regardless, it doesn’t make the practice less worrisome from a privacy standpoint, as it should generally be an individual’s choice as to which companies have access to sensitive data about that person. It appears that that simply isn’t the case with many different apps.

NEXT:Long-awaited Facebook ‘clear history’ tool coming sometime in 2019

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