Facebook reportedly paying people to gain complete access to their phones

A recent report has suggested that Facebook has been paying some users in exchange of gaining total access of their phone activity as part of a research project.

It is being said that social media site Facebook has been paying users $20 per month since 2016 in order to have social network access to their phone activity as part of a research program to learn about people’s phone usage, reported Tech Crunch.

The site paid people aged between 13 and 32 and payment of $20 per month and also referral fees for their phone and web activity. The firm was able to access this data after users installed a ‘Facebook Research’ VPN app on both iOS or Android.

Facebook to reportedly merge WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger

Through this, the app monitors the phone and web activity and sends it back to Facebook. The firm is able to view web searches, private messages in social media apps, location information, photos and videos, emails and such other data. The participants were also asked to screenshot a page showing what they ordered from Amazon, said the report.

Moreover, beta testing services including BetaBound, uTest, and Applause helped distribute the app and didn’t initially mention on the sign-up pages for the social media study that they will let Facebook access the participants’ data.

“Like many companies, we invite people to participate in research that helps us identify things we can be doing better,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNBC.

“Since this research is aimed at helping Facebook understand how people use their mobile devices, we’ve provided extensive information about the type of data we collect and how they can participate. We don’t share this information with others and people can stop participating at any time.”