Facebook uses your phone’s accelerometer to collect personal data
Security researchers say that Facebook also uses the accelerometer on your iPhone to track your movements which can lead to Facebook discovering your behaviors and activities at certain times of the day. It can also link you with people around you even if you have no idea who these people are. The accelerometer can help determine if you are lying down, sitting, or walking while using an app.
There is no way to turn this off and stop Facebook from mining the data from your accelerometer. Researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk say that “Facebook reads accelerometer data all the time. If you don’t allow Facebook access to your location, the app can still infer your exact location only by grouping you with users matching the same vibration pattern that your phone accelerometer records.”
Researcher Tommy Mysk says that even if you don’t give Facebook permission to access your location, it can use other information to figure out where you are
Both researchers say that accelerometer data is collected by Facebook, Instagram, and Whats App, although it can be disabled with the latter. Mysk says, “In Facebook and Instagram it is not clear why the app is reading the accelerometer—I couldn’t find a way to disable it.” And that means that the only way to prevent Facebook and Instagram from collecting this information is to delete the apps from your phone.
Other similar apps including iMessage, Telegram, Signal, TikTok, and WeChat do not use a subscriber’s accelerometer
Interestingly, Mysk checked out TikTok, WeChat, iMessage, Telegram, and Signal. The security researcher determined that none of the five apps use the accelerometer from their subscribers’ phones to gather information. He added that “Although the accelerometer data seems to be innocuous, it’s jaw-dropping what apps can make up of these measurements.”
When you toggle off the shake to report feature in the Facebook app, nothing happens when you shake the phone but the app continues to draw information from the accelerometer. Facebook even has filed an application for a patent on a way to use wireless phone signals to connect strangers.
The researchers use an example of two passengers on a bus to explain how Facebook can use the accelerometer to find your precise location. How? “If you are on the bus and a passenger is sharing their precise location with Facebook,” they say, Facebook can easily tell that you are in the same location as the passenger. Both vibration patterns are going to be identical.”
