A software bug exposed the photos of up to 6.8 million @Facebook users, including pictures they had not posted. Several third-party apps had access to “a broader set of photos than usual” for 12 days in September, FB said. Affected users will be notified.
Facebook is having more privacy issues. It announced Friday a bug in its platform may have given third-party apps access to photos of nearly 7 million users.
Tomer Bar, Facebook’s engineering director, said in a blog post that the bug involved up to 1,500 apps and it affects 876 developers between Sept. 13 and Sept. 25.
When users grant access to their photos to third parties, it typically only applies to those posted on their timelines. The bug gave developers who had obtained that permission to access photos outside of that scope, including those posted on users’ stories.
The news was buried in a blog targeted at developers who build apps for its platform. The incident is being investigated as part of a wider inquiry by the Irish data protection commissioner into the high number of privacy breaches on Facebook this year. The company’s European headquarters is in Dublin.
Facebook waited two months before telling European regulators about the breach, which could put it in line for fines for not disclosing.
This company’s troubles are not only souring users on Facebook, but employees and the tech industry as large as well. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress earlier this year that “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”
Next week, Facebook will give the tools to app developers to determine which users were impacted by the bug and will notify Facebook users directly via a Facebook alert if they were potentially affected.
How to check by yourself whether your FB photos are breached by bug.
To check your account, visit this page and sign in to your Facebook account if prompted.
The small box near the bottom of the explanation is where you’ll be told whether your account was affected, and what you can do if it was.
