Facebook decides to block apps and websites sharing personal medical information

Facebook has started blocking sensitive information of consumers’ health that are shared by third-party apps on their platform, citing violation of rules.

New York financial services department released a report saying details like whether the users were pregnant were shared by a Facebook analytics tool developed by various app makers. State financial services superintendent Linda Lacewell said in a release that Facebook had only instructed apps and websites to not share personal information but didn’t take any steps. “By continuing to do business with app developers that broke the rule, Facebook put itself in a position to profit from sensitive data that it was never supposed to receive in the first place”, she said.

Facebook in response to questions by AFP said, “We have improved our efforts to detect and block potentially sensitive data and are doing more to educate advertisers on how to set-up and use our business tools.”

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