FB giving access to users’ data

LONDON: A British parliamentary committee accused Facebook on Wednesday of giving companies such as Netflix preferential access to users’ data even after it tightened its privacy rules in 2014-15.

The UK parliament’s select media committee published more than 200 pages of internal Facebook emails it has acquired while probing how the giant was being used to manipulate major election results.

The emails feature in a case being heard in a California court filed against the giant by the now-defunct US app developer Six4Three. Committee chair Damian Collins said it was not clear from the private exchanges between Facebook and app developers whether users were aware that their friends list and other private information was being used.

"Facebook have clearly entered into whitelisting agreements with certain companies, which meant that after the platform changes in 2014/15 they maintained full access to friends data," Collins wrote in an accompanying note.