Three users of Facebook’s Messenger application sued the company in California on Tuesday, accusing it of violating their privacy by collecting logs of their phone calls and text messages, Reuters reported.
Facebook had on Sunday admitted it was logging the calls and text messages, but only from those Android users who had allowed its application to access them. The company said it stores the information securely and does not sell it to third parties.
The social media company has been under fire for nearly two weeks over concerns about how it handles the personal data of its users.
On March 21, a man from New Zealand had posted on Twitter that he found his phone call logs on his personal archive that he had downloaded on the social media website. Later, technology website Ars Technica reported that Facebook may have access to records of users’ phone calls made on older versions of Android.
Users who did not choose the option to deny the Facebook application access to their contacts ended up giving the company data about their phone call and message logs as well, according to Ars Technica. This took place for Android versions before Android 4.1 was launched in 2012.
Android, an operating system developed by Google, changed the permission structure in later versions, but apps such as Facebook could still find a way to access the calls and message metadata, Ars Technica said. Apple’s iOS has never allowed applications access to call records.
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