Facebook to developers: Thou shalt not use thy data to spy.
In a Monday post, Facebook’s public policy team said it was making changes to its developers’ policy to make the language forbidding of surveillance tools more explicit: “Don’t use data obtained from us to provide tools that are used for surveillance.”
Facebook’s refined policy also extends to its photo-sharing platform Instagram.
The policy change follows strong criticism from civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Media Justice, and Color of Change.
The ACLU revealed in October that a developer, Geofeedia, used Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter data to help law enforcement agencies track activists linked to online social movements, such as Black Lives Matter and the protests that ensued following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Social media companies—including Facebook, which used the company for corporate security—revoked Geofeedia’s data access as a result.
Facebook has been cleaning house recently, revamping policies that drew scrutiny and criticism over the past year. Earlier this year, Facebook changed its advertising policy that previously let businesses target, and potentially discriminate against, certain demographic groups, including on the basis of race. The social network also updated its highly criticized and unevenly applied nudity policy to include “newsworthy” nude photos late last year.
Regarding this week’s policy change, the company said it was grateful to the civil liberty groups who pushed for reform and that it has taken “enforcement action” against developers who use consumer data for surveillance.
“Over the past several months we have taken enforcement action against developers who created and marketed tools meant for surveillance, in violation of our existing policies; we want to be sure everyone understands the underlying policy and how to comply,” Facebook wrote.
“We will continue using our policies to support our community, and we hope that these efforts will help encourage other companies to take positive steps as well.”