Current Events > Facebook admits camera-equipped listening device can collect your data for ads.

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Facebook admits its camera-equipped listening device can collect your data for ads

Facebook's decision to launch a camera-equipped listening device for people's living rooms, just months after one of the biggest data scandals in history, was greeted with a fair amount of suspicion.

Given that Facebook's business model relies on using people's data to serve them personalised ads, it seemed fair to assume that the Portal smart speaker could serve a purpose beyond simply acting as a voice-activated home assistant that can handle video calls.

Yet Facebook assured people that "no data collected through Portal even call log data or app usage data, like the fact that you listen to Spotify will be used to target users with ads on Facebook."

Within days of announcing this claim, however, Facebook was forced to backtrack.

A spokesperson for Facebook was unable to provide a comment to The Independent at the time of writing on Portal's data collecting practices, though the company confirmed to Recode how the device could in facet be used to target people with ads.

"Portal voice calling is built on the Messenger infrastructure, so when you make a video call on Portal, we collect the same types of information (i.e. usage data such as length of calls, frequency of calls) that we collect on other Messenger-enabled devices," a spokesperson said.

"We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms. Other general usage data, such as aggregate usage of apps, etc., may also feed into the information that we use to serve ads."

It does, however, include rather unnerving tracking technology in its camera that uses artificial intelligence to follow people around the room. In an apparent effort to assuage fears surrounding this function, Facebook included a "privacy shutter" to allow people to physically block the camera's lens a feature that was only reportedly added in response to poor public trust in Facebook.

Source/More reading:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-portal-ads-tracking-data-privacy-camera-a8588321.html

What do you think? Do you personally own a smart speaker/dedicated smart home assistant?
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What utility value does it have that I'd actually want, anyway?

Questionmarktarius posted...

What utility value does it have that I'd actually want, anyway?

Honestly I have no idea. I don't personally use a smart speaker in my home. It feels kind of redundant considering I have a smart assistant built into my phone and that's almost always on me. For video calling it seems redundant to have a dedicated product just for that as well.
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no fucking way

this can't be real

please tell me the independent just got duped by the Onion or something

Kombucha posted...

just months after one of the biggest data scandals in history

Also why do people seem to keep forgetting about this

And also the bug like what, a month ago, that allowed people to access other people's profiles through the "view as" function

i literally can't even rn

Like are there actually people out there who put real, sensitive data (phone numbers, credit card numbers, etc.) on anything related to facebook? I mean what if a mom is out there using messenger to send her SSN to her kid or something

this is just comical

By the way, the only punishment levied so far to Equifax is 500,000 pounds in the UK. Nothing done by the US.

What a joke
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