Facebook recently tried to allay some privacy concerns over their Facebook Home app and what it could and couldn’t access on your phone. Well, fast forward to the latest Facebook app update, and it looks like some of that data collection has potentially bled over into the standalone app from Facebook Home.
Some new permissions in the update are essentially to let you know that Facebook does have permission to view all of your running apps on your device. At first glance, that seems pretty invasive, but the Facebook app is the backbone to Facebook Home; Facebook Home itself requires no special permissions because it pulls everything through the Facebook app. So, it is a possibility that those permissions are only used when Facebook Home is installed on your phone as well. It’s also a possibility that Facebook has accidentally crossed a privacy line. Until we get some clarification from Facebook or another source, there’s really not much else we can dissect from those permissions, but it’s a great reminder that you should always be wary of what you’re installing on your phone, even if it’s from a big company like Facebook.
source: The Next Web
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