Glitch Exposes Photos of 7M Facebook Users

Facebook said Friday that a software bug affecting nearly 7 million users may have exposed a broader set of photos to app developers than what those users intended. Although this doesn't mean the photos were actually seen by anyone, the revelation of the bug offers another reminder of just how much data Facebook has on its 2.27 billion users and how often these sorts of slip-ups happen, per the AP. In a blog post, the company said the bug affected 6.8 million people who granted permission for third-party apps to access the photos. Facebook said that the users' photos may have been exposed for 12 days in September and that the bug was fixed.

Generally when people give apps access to their photos, it means only photos posted on their Facebook page. Facebook says the bug potentially gave developers access to other photos, such as those shared on Marketplace or on Facebook Stories. The bug also affected photos that people uploaded to Facebook but chose not to post or could not post for technical reasons. The problem comes in a year fraught with privacy scandals and other problems for the world's biggest social network.

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