Instagram and it’s parent company Facebook are being sued for allegedly using iPhone’s camera even when the application is not being used. The lawsuit alleges that “By obtaining extremely private and intimate personal data on their users, including in the privacy of their own homes, [Facebook is] able to increase their advertising revenue by targeting users more than ever before,”. The lawsuit has been filed by an Instagram user from San Francisco.
This is not the only allegation that Facebook has received in a court recently. In a lawsuit a few weeks ago, Facebook was accused of using facial recognition data to build their databases. Prior to that, Facebook had been called in court for accessing the cameras on the mobile devices even when Instagram was not in use, pretty similar to the allegation today. While Facebook has denied these allegations every time they pop-up, privacy becomes a growing concern for users as Facebook has been actively collecting more user-data for better advertisements. Facebook also came into the news when they were accused of participating in illegal publicity during the last elections in US to support one party by showing ads promoting one specific political group. Facebook, as expected, denied the allegations.
While Facebook has denied the allegations, it has not followed up on any questions by the news agency. Facebook says that the camera notification pops up because of a software flaw that they are trying to correct. More developments on the story to follow.
