The New York Times recently reported on a data-sharing partnership between Facebook and Huawei. The report mentioned that the agreement between the companies dates back to 2010 and provided Huawei with special access to the data of Facebook users. The partnership was part of Facebook’s efforts to enable smartphone manufacturers to build Facebook-like experiences and make the social network’s services more convenient for users. Facebook has now said that it will wind down its data-sharing partnership with Huawei.
The arrangement has been referred to as “standard industry practice” by a Facebook representative. Huawei isn’t the only Chinese company that Facebook reportedly had such an arrangement with, Lenovo, Oppo, and TCL are on the list as well.
It’s the company’s partnership with Huawei that’s causing it to take a lot of flak. Huawei has often been cited as a security concern by government agencies such as the FBI and the NSA. Huawei has time and again denied allegations that its devices enable the Chinese government to spy on its users but the argument has never swayed U.S. agencies.
“Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO and TCL were controlled from the get go — and we approved the Facebook experiences these companies built,” said Francisco Varela, vice president of Facebook mobile partnerships, said in a statement, adding that the company wants to clarify that the data from these integrations with Huawei were stored on the device and not on Huawei’s servers.
“Huawei has never collected or stored any Facebook user data,” the Chinese company said in its own statement. Despite having similar arrangements with other manufacturers, Facebook has now said that it’s going to wind down its partnership with Huawei by the end of this week.