It seems like Facebook may be spying more than what is legitimate in it is messenger app, claims a security researcher.
Jonathan Zdziarski, a security researcher and an expert on iOS forensics said in an interview with Motherboard, “Messenger appears to have more spyware type code in it than I’ve seen in products intended specifically for enterprise surveillance.”
A Facebook engineer had responded in a tweet to Zdziarski, saying that the social media giant collects information to make the app run faster and efficient.
In a statement, Facebook officially said that the “accusations are completely unjustified.” The company, stressing that privacy is core to its approach with Messenger, said that it analyzes usage trends to make the apps better, faster, and more efficient, just like any other developer.
Facebook added that “as an example, with regard to what and where people tap – when we noticed that people were using the ‘Like’ stickers a lot, we modified the app so that people could send them with fewer taps.”
Earlier in August, Facebook has been in the thick of a controversy and there was a severe backlash when its Messenger app for Android requested access to the device’s camera, microphone and text messages.
However, the social networking giant published a post titled “Get the facts” to affirm that the messenger app doesn’t turn on camera or microphone when not in use and that Facebook’s goal behind forcing users to chat via the separate Messenger app was to offer users with a hassle free chatting experience.
