Facebook bug exposed private photos of 6.8mn users to third-party apps

Once again Facebook users go through another one of its bugs where it exposed millions of private photos to around 1,500 third-party apps.

In a recent blog post, Facebook notified its users about a bug discovered in its photo software. It affected some 6.8 million users across up to 1,500 apps built by 876 app developers. The bug basically allowed authorized app programmers to access photos that were uploaded by users on the social media app, but not shared publicly, and also those on Facebook Stories.

“When someone gives permission for an app to access their photos on Facebook, we usually only grant the app access to photos people share on their timeline. In this case, the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or Facebook Stories. The bug also impacted photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post.”

Facebook explained, “For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn’t finish posting it — maybe because they’ve lost reception or walked into a meeting — we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post.”

Facebook said that the victims were mostly those who used Facebook Login and granted permission to third-party apps to access their photos. Facebook apologized for the act, also informing that they have fixed the issue and the steps it would take to protect users’ privacy.

“We’re sorry this happened. Early next week we will be rolling out tools for app developers that will allow them to determine which people using their app might be impacted by this bug. We will be working with those developers to delete the photos from impacted users.”

Also, for the users affected by the bug, Facebook will show up an alert to notify them, directing them further to a Help Center link where they will be able to see if they have used any apps that were affected by the bug. “We are also recommending people log into any apps with which they have shared their Facebook photos to check which photos they have access to.”