The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has been named in the latest Facebook privacy scandal.
In documents uncovered by the New York Times, firms including RBC, Spotify and Netflix were able to read, write and delete users’ private messages. This went far beyond what the companies needed to integrate Facebook into their systems.
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An RBC spokesperson told the New York Times that the bank disputes any such access. Spotify and Netflix said they were unaware of the access.
Spotify, which could view messages from over 70 million people a month, still offers the option to share music over Facebook Messenger.
In a blog post, Facebook has argued against the allegations that it gave companies access to information without people’s permission.
It said: “We recognise that we’ve needed tighter management over how partners and developers can access information using our APIs. We’re already in the process of reviewing all our APIs and the partners who can access them.”
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By GlobalDataFacebook privacy scandal
Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has to be very careful with who it gives access to data. However, this is not a surprise considering it was rumoured that Facebook was pushing banks to use Messenger.
The social media platform apparently asked for detailed financial information such as card transactions and checking-account balances. The firm strongly denies this.
A Facebook spokesperson told RBI: “A recent Wall Street Journal story implies incorrectly that we are actively asking financial services companies for financial transaction data – this is not true. Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management.
“The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone – and it’s completely opt-in. We’re not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences – not for advertising or anything else. A critical part of these partnerships is keeping people’s information safe and secure.”
Social media is also still incredibly important for banks. To see the most “liked” financial institutions on Facebook, check our rankings.
Visa had 22,378,077 likes across its two pages, a 4.5% increase from the previous year, and Mastercard had close to 16 million, with a slightly larger year-on-year increase of 6.9%.
In addition, State Bank of India (SBI) placed third in RBI’s Facebook rankings, with over 14.5 million likes on the platform – a staggering 36% more likes than the previous year.
