Facebook, the American company offering online social networking services had been facing controversial issues regarding user’s privacy back a few times. This time the company has been sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users by unauthorized use of mobile phone cameras. It is claimed that the Instagram app is using iPhone’s camera even when it is not actively being used.
Facebook reaction to allegations
The lawsuit filed in July alleged that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren’t actively being used. Facebook denied it and blamed it as a bug which triggered false notification that Instagram was accessing iPhone cameras and said it was fixing it.
On Thursday 17 September 2020, according to the complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco, New Jersey by Instagram user Brittany Conditi claims that the app’s use of the camera is intentional and done for the purpose of collecting “lucrative and valuable data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to” by obtaining extremely private and intimate personal data on their users, including in the privacy of their own homes. Instagram and Facebook are able to collect “valuable insights and market research,” according to the complaint. Neither Facebook nor Instagram responded immediately to requests for comment.
According to a suit filed a month ago, Facebook was blamed for using facial-recognition technology to wrongfully collect the biometric information of its more than 100 million Instagram users. But, Facebook denied the case and said Instagram doesn’t utilize face-recognition technology.
