In a leaked document, Facebook has no idea what happens to user data. While governments in many nations try to reign in the Meta-owned Facebook’s handling of user data, the business appears to have no knowledge of what happens to the data or where it goes.
Facebook’s privacy engineers talked about the process of dictating all user data on its platforms in a leaked paper obtained by Motherboard dated 2021. The text uses an analogy of an ink bottle to explain the predicament, referring to Facebook as a collection of “systems with open borders.”
The document reads. For the uninitiated 3PD means third-party data, 1PD refers to first-party data, and SCD stands for sensitive categories data.
“Imagine you hold a bottle of ink in your hand. This bottle of ink is a mixture of all kinds of user data (3PD, 1PD, SCD, Europe, etc.) You pour that ink into a lake of water (our open data systems; our open culture) … and it flows … everywhere,” the document read. “How do you put that ink back in the bottle? How do you organize it again, such that it only flows to the allowed places in the lake?”
A recent job listing seen by Vice stated, the paper was created by privacy engineers on Facebook’s Ad and Business Product team, and is responsible for building “meaningful connections between individuals and business.”
What this means is that Facebook is having trouble understanding what happens to user data after it is absorbed into the Facebook ecosystem. This problem is referred to as “data lineage.”
Regulators in the United States, the European Union, India, and other nations are currently striving to exert greater control over social media corporations like Meta, Twitter, and Google. The new IT laws in India force businesses to respond more quickly to complaints about content on their platforms.
The government can also seek information about the point of origination of any piece of content. As part of these rules, social media companies also need to maintain grievance officers to ensure compliance with these new laws, among many things.
Read it here: S3.documentcloud.org
Sources: Washingtonexaminer, Dailymail, Vice