The data scandals surrounding Facebook don't really want to end, now another glitch has become known, which Facebook is communicating openly.
The internal Facebook development team that a bug in the Photos API may have caused users who allowed third-party apps to access their public photos to also allow them access to their private photos.
Bug already fixed
The issue has now been resolved, but those third-party apps had access to private photos for a total of 12 days between September 13 and September 25, 2018.
Which photos exactly were affected?
Normally, third-party apps only have access to public photos, even if you use the Facebook login to log in within an app.
In this case, however, the app and therefore also the developers of those apps had full access, including all photos in the Marketplace, in Facebook stories and all photos that were set to “private”. Photos that were uploaded but not posted, for example because the connection was lost, could also be viewed, as Facebook always keeps a backup copy of such photos for three days in case the user then logs in again to edit the photo.
How many users were affected?
According to Facebook estimates, up to 6.8 million users and 1,500 apps from 876 developers were affected. Only apps that had permission from Facebook to access photos could then access the private photos; the user must also have granted permission.
Developers will be able to test soon
Early next week, Facebook will release some tools for app developers to help them determine which users of their app were affected by this bug. Facebook promises to work with these developers to ensure that any private photos that have been leaked elsewhere through these apps are deleted.
Users are also informed
Facebook will also inform affected users via a notification on Facebook. The notification will then contain a link to the Help Center, where you can see which apps you were using that were affected by this error.
Notes:
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