Why Airtel and Saavn got special access to Facebook's data? Read what a report reveals

Facebook said it was giving certain companies special access to user data (Source: Reuters)

The recent discovery by Facebook of internal data that noted the company was giving special concessions to some companies requesting access to user data. a written submission to the US Congress has created new concerns about data privacy. Airtel and Saavn are among the companies that have been favored by Facebook, the exemption after Facebook having revoked their access to user data on the platform in 2015 or as part of "data sharing agreements" in the context of the "integration partnership". Although the social media giant did not specify why this special treatment was involved, a new report suggests that all companies have been helpful to Facebook in a way that has allowed them to reap certain benefits .

Airtel and Saavn belonged to two distinct groups of companies authorized to access user data on special terms despite new regulations coming into effect in API policy. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, these "white list agreements" were signed with companies that held a significant amount of advertising on Facebook or who held value for any reason

. The data of Facebook users, in line with the consent of users, to save personal data and data on the friends of the user who is registered to the service. Saavn uses a Facebook connection on his platform where he asks the user to allow access to most personal data, in addition to other information about his friends. However, following the promulgation of the privacy policy in 2015, Facebook has removed this type of access given to third parties after much outrage.

Saavn is one of 61 companies that have benefited from a temporary exemption from data blocking on friends and their respective data. The exemption, albeit a temporary one, allowed these companies to comply with the new enhanced platform API policy in order to protect users' privacy from potential third-party breaches. While Facebook has not clearly mentioned the reason behind this favor given to the 61 companies, it has now become apparent that after the deployment of new policies in May 2015, Saavn and other companies continued to access to personal information of the user such as the date of The data collected by these companies during the period mentioned were strictly against the new policy of the API which required that all the developers of the applications justify the need to access the database. one or more information about a user arriving on his platform via Facebook. In the event that the "legitimate need for this data" is not produced, Facebook is able to categorically deny the application of this application. Facebook said it removed data access requests from more than half of applications received under the new policy between April 2014 and April 2018.

The Wall Street Journal report points out that these companies have signed the agreement with Silicon Valley. The company has made a major contribution to advertising on the platform or has been helpful to Facebook in one way or another, which is not clear at the moment. We could not check separately if that was the case, but Saavn refuted the charges that there was no extension of time given by Facebook to the company.

In the same order of ideas, Airtel, which falls in the second series by Facebook to obtain the data of its users in order to offer a "similar experience to Facebook". Besides Airtel, the number of companies that received this bonus included 51 other companies having signed a pact with Facebook called "integration partnerships". It can be understood as services launched by software companies to enable people to access Facebook services on a wide range of products and devices. This is a broader category for Facebook's SMS alert service that started in India and elsewhere a few years ago.

Facebook has said that it has ended 38 of the 52 partnerships while the remaining seven companies are agreeing to close by July this year and that one of them will be closed. They will have his business done in October of this year. Besides Airtel, the list contains the names of other large companies, including Apple, Amazon and BlackBerry.

A New York Times report points out that these "white list agreements" with hardware and device manufacturers allowed them to "access data from users' friends without their explicit consent and even after declaring that He would no longer share this information with strangers. "It is not known what information Airtel was able to access as a result of this partnership.

Airtel also agreed that such a partnership existed and that He had access to some data from Facebook users, but he also stated that the partnership had ended in 2013, as had access to data.Airtel stated that the data consulted were used "only at internal purposes ".