Facebook Reveals Reason for Call and SMS History Logging System

• Facebook keeps a long record of a user's call and SMS history.
• The company gained access to all such information as the users' unknowingly allowed access when downloading the app.
• The social media giant has provided their side of the story for storing such huge amount of private data.

Over the past few years, Facebook has been collecting user data including their call history and SMS records. Now. It is true that before downloading the Facebook app, users do get a prompt indicating that the app will gain access to call logs and so on. But rarely users have an idea about the extent of data collection that is done by the social media giant.

Recently some users stumbled upon the vast collection of data the company has collected about them. In an attempt to back up their Facebook history, users came to know Facebook had stored information about every single phone call they made, every message they sent, the time and duration of each call, and much more. What is more disturbing is that such data spanned over a two-year time frame.

Users who are interested to see how much the social network has stored data about thems can head on over to Settings>General and then hit the “Download a copy of your Facebook data” button.

According to Ars Technica, Facebook has been acquiring all this data through its Messenger application. It voluntarily got access to users data by using an innocent ‘share info’ message pop-up: “this lets friends find each other on Facebook and helps us create a better experience for everyone.”

Image Courtesy of PCWorld

In the light of the Cambridge Analytica incident, all such data harvesting tendency of Facebook has come under question. In efforts to explain the reason for the behavior, the company published a statement saying, “We never sell this data, and this feature does not collect the content of your text messages or calls. [...] When this feature is enabled, uploading your contacts also allows us to use information like when a call or text was made or received. This feature does not collect the content of your calls or text messages. Your information is securely stored, and we do not sell this information to third parties. You are always in control of the information you share with Facebook.”

Whatever be the reason, such data collecting habits are indeed disturbing. If you wish to deactivate this option, then tap on your profile picture while on the Home Screen, head to People, and turn off Sync contact option.