What data the company actually saves it’s impossible to tell.
In return for all this data, the user gets $20 per month in e-gift cards, plus referral fees.Īccording to security expert Will Strafach, who was asked by TechCrunch to analyze the Facebook Research app, the certificate allows Facebook to access “private messages in social media apps, chats from in instant messaging apps – including photos/videos sent to others, emails, web searches, web browsing activity, and even ongoing location information by tapping into the feeds of any location tracking apps you may have installed.” To use the Facebook Research app, the user is required to install a Facebook Enterprise Developer Certificate and “trust” it, so that the company can have root access to phone and usage data. When Apple banned its Onavo VPN app from its App Store last summer, Facebook took repackaged the app, named it “Facebook Research” and offered it for download through three app beta testing services, TechCrunch has discovered.įacebook used the Onavo app to collect the aforementioned data of both Android and iOS users and, based on the information gleaned from it, made decisions to acquire competing apps and add popular features to their own apps.Īpple banned and removed the Onavo app because it was in direct violation of the store’s data collection policies, but Facebook’s need for information would not be denied: the new app, called “Facebook Research,” was soon after uploaded to BetaBound, uTest and Applause – but not to TestFlight, Apple’s own official beta testing system.
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