Yes, Facebook smart speakers will collect data about you that could be used for advertisements – BGR

When Facebook unveiled its smart portal speakers last week, he insisted that the devices would protect your privacy, even if they were equipped with a camera and microphones. The attention to privacy is not surprising for a company that is still in hot water after the revelations of Cambridge Analytica earlier this year. However, even if you want to trust Facebook, be aware that portal devices will collect data about you. This data could be used in the future to target you with better ads.

In other words, a Facebook device for which you actually pay will still collect data that would allow Facebook to make even more money. During its hearings at Cambridge Analytica, Facebook insisted that advertising allowed its service to be free – you can not pay to use a Facebook without ads now.

Data collection is now a confirmed feature of the portal and Facebook has had to modify its statements on the topic being addressed. recoding:

Last Monday, we wrote: "No data collected via Portal – even call log data or application usage data, like the fact that you have listened to Spotify – will be used to target the data. users with Facebook ads. "

We wrote this because that's what the Facebook leaders told us.

But Facebook has since tried to change its answer: the portal does not contain ads, but data about the people you call and the applications you use on the portal. can to be used to target you with advertisements on other properties belonging to Facebook.

Here's what a Facebook spokesman told the blog, correcting Rafa Camargo's previous statements on Facebook:

Voice calls from the portal are based on the Messenger infrastructure. Therefore, when you make a video call to Portal, we collect the same types of information (usage data such as the duration and frequency of calls) that we collect on other compatible devices Messenger. . We may use this information to inform the ads we show you on our platforms. Other general usage data, such as the overall use of applications, can also feed the information we use to serve ads.

Camargo, Vice President in charge of Portal, then declared to recoding The portal team has not planned to use the data for the ads, but could possibly use them for ads in the future:

I think [my colleague] intended to say that we do not intend to use it, it could possibly be used.

Facebook is not the only company to collect data from a voice assistant. Collecting some user data is the way each technology works. However, Facebook must confirm that portal gadgets have the potential to turn more of your data into ads. This is not something portal skeptics will like to hear, not after the past year on Facebook.