The article contains an observation that the Facebook app reads accelerometer data. It contains no evidence that Facebook retains this data, stores or uploads it to Facebook servers, or uses it for any purpose other than what is stated (some kind of camera thing and gesture recognition for bug reporting).
The rest is made-up speculation about what they “wonder” Facebook could do with this data if they were storing it - which, again, they have no evidence to suggest is happening. I find the idea that you can effectively use accelerometer traces to correlate the location of devices to be extremely unlikely in practice, even if theoretically possible.
Meanwhile, this site itself is so festooned with trashy ads and pop ups such that only about 15% of my screen is available to display the actual article text.
> Researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk warn that “Facebook reads accelerometer data all the time. If you don't allow Facebook access to your location, the app can still infer your exact location only by grouping you with users matching the same vibration pattern that your phone accelerometer records.”
Really weaselly phrasing here. Seems designed to persuade you that FB is actually doing this.
Forbes is indeed barely readable clickbait garbage and has been for many years.
Putting aside the quality of forbes, at the end of the day, the FB app is proprietary software - we don't know if it is using the data for tracking, and even if security researchers were to determine whether one particular version of the app were not using accelerometer data, there's nothing stopping FB covertly pushing a later update that enables it later (it wouldn't even need to change the permissions).
FB is a company that doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, ringing the alarm bells is perfectly justified.
it reads the accelerometer data even with the relevant camera feature turned off, so unless we see evidence otherwise it seems prudent to assume they harvest it… they’ve moved well beyond deserving the benefit of the doubt
The article contains an observation that the Facebook app reads accelerometer data. It contains no evidence that Facebook retains this data, stores or uploads it to Facebook servers, or uses it for any purpose other than what is stated (some kind of camera thing and gesture recognition for bug reporting).
The rest is made-up speculation about what they “wonder” Facebook could do with this data if they were storing it - which, again, they have no evidence to suggest is happening. I find the idea that you can effectively use accelerometer traces to correlate the location of devices to be extremely unlikely in practice, even if theoretically possible.
Meanwhile, this site itself is so festooned with trashy ads and pop ups such that only about 15% of my screen is available to display the actual article text.