EW DELHI: Facebook is having a not-so-good time since past few days as it has come under a barrage of criticism from several government authorities for sharing user data with a third-party consulting firm. Recently it was unearthed that the social media giant has also been gathering regular call and SMS data records from smartphones. We already have given steps on how you too can get to see what call and SMS data Facebook is gathering. But the social media firm, in a blog post, has detailed how it gathers this data.

The post says that it only captures this data whenever users give the permission. Call and text history logging is said to come as a part of an opt-in feature for those using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. It is also possible to turn off this feature by visiting the Messenger settings page for Messenger and Facebook Lite users.

“While we receive certain permissions from Android, uploading this information has always been opt-in only,” says the post.

Messenger users can visit the link – https://www.facebook.com/help/838237596230667 and delete all contact information from – https://www.facebook.com/mobile/messenger/contacts.Facebook Lite users can perform the same steps from – https://www.facebook.com/help/fblite/355489824655936.

“If you chose to turn this feature on, we will begin to continuously log this information, which can be downloaded at any time using the Download Your Information tool,” adds the post.

The social media giant reconfirmed that it never sells these data and the feature does not collect the content of the SMS or calls.

You can however, check what all data of yours has Facebook captured until now. All you need to do is to download the .zip file. The steps are simple. The document also shows what all advertisers are using your Facebook contact information.

Source: gadgetsnow.com