Dec. 19, 2018
Royal Bank of Canada defended itself against claims that it was one of a number of major firms provided access to private data in the Messenger app by Facebook Inc., despite earlier assertions by the social media platform that private data was protected.
The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the social media platform granted access to private user data, allowing companies like Spotify, Netflix and Royal Bank to read, write and delete private messages from Messenger users.
"RBC's use of the Facebook platform was limited to the development of a service that enabled clients to facilitate payment transactions to their Facebook friends, which was launched in December 2013," RBC said in a statement provided by spokesman Al Goodman. "As part of our security and fraud protocols, we needed to uniquely identify the recipient of funds and payments to securely process the transaction and deliver the notification."
The statement stated the bank decommissioned the service in 2015 and its limited access, which was used strictly to enable client payments, ended at the time.
A key Facebook official defended the practice in a blog post Tuesday, claiming the data sharing practice was done with integration partners to allow users to have access to Facebook accounts on other platforms, like Apple, Amazon, Blackberry and Yahoo and to allow users to have more social experiences on third-party apps like Netflix, The New York Times, Pandora or Spotify.
"To be clear, none of these partnerships or features gave gave companies access to information without people's permission, nor did they violate our 2012 settlement with the FTC," Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, director of developer platforms and programs, wrote in the post.
Facebook executive Steve Satterfield, director of privacy and public policy, issued a statement through a spokesperson on Wednesday, stating the company did not allow its partners to ignore privacy policies.
"We know we've got work to do to regain people's trust. Protecting people's information requires stronger teams, better technology, and clearer policies, and that's where we've been focused for most of 2018. Partnerships are one area of focus and, as we've said, we're winding down the integration partnerships that were built to help people access Facebook."
In a separate action Washington D.C. attorney general's office has filed suit against Facebook alleging the company failed to protect customer data security when it shared information with Cambridge Analytica. That company used data from Facebook in connection with analytics activity during the 2016 presidential election, and is being investigated by federal authorities.
A Facebook spokesperson said the company it is reviewing the suit and looks forward to continuing the discussion with the DC AG and others.
Topics: In-App Payments, Mobile Apps, Mobile Banking, Mobile Payments, Money Transfer / P2P, Region: Americas, Security
Companies: Royal Bank of Canada, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon
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