Facebook’s decision to mandate download of its Messenger app for all smartphone owners to send and receive messages from the social networking site on their phones, hasn’t received positive response from users.
There have been widespread rumors among users which claim downloading Facebook’s messenger app allows the social networking giant access to “phone camera and record audio call and send messages” without the users’ permission, collect and send details about the users and all their contacts to third parties.
Facebook has however denied the privacy invasion reports and has published a ‘Get the Facts‘ post to assuage some of users’ concerns.
Facebook’s Peter Martinazzi in a blog post said reports that claim that the messenger app is always using user’s phone’s camera and microphone to see and hear what they’re doing, aren’t true and that many have been corrected.
He said like when a user wants to send a selfie to a friend, the app needs permission to turn on the user’s phone camera and capture that photo, the same is with Facebook that also request permission from users to run certain features, such as making calls and sending photos, videos or voice messages. The Messenger app doesn’t turn on user’s camera or microphone when they are not in use.
Furthermore, Martinazzi also stressed that Facebook’s goal behind forcing users to chat via the separate Messenger app was to offer users with a hassle free chatting experience. People using a Messenger responds about 20 percent faster, he claimed.
Horrible writing. “He said like when a user wants to send a selfie to a friend…”?
Generation XBox is barely literate.
No, you get the facts straight. This application can use your camera / microphone without your intervention, even when the phone is in sleep mode. Stop selling bull ****.
Why not list the permissions and let people decide, ( Because then they would actually be like WTF does facebook messenger need to read all my text (SMS) messages for, WTF does it neeed to read, update and delete my contacts for, WTF does it need to do so much to my phone just so can read and reply to messages on facebook).
Here are the permissions:
Identity
find accounts on the device
read your own contact card
Contacts/Calendar
read your contacts
Location
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
SMS
edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
receive text messages (SMS)
read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
send SMS messages
receive text messages (MMS)
Phone
directly call phone numbers
read call log
Photos/Media/Files
test access to protected storage
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Camera/Microphone
take pictures and videos
record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
read phone status and identity
Other
receive data from Internet
download files without notificationrun at startup
prevent device from sleeping
view network connections
install shortcuts
read battery statistics
change your audio settings
read Google service configuration
draw over other apps
full network access
read sync settings
control vibration
change network connectivity
Why does it need to read the call log ? ( By read they mean store a list of who you have been calling on facebooks servers), Why does it need to read your contacts ? ( Again, by read, they mean store your contact list on their servers) Why does it need to call phone numbers ? I thought this was just an app for sending messages to facebook friends. In reality its a tool designed to sell everything you do on your phone to advertisers.