People are freaking out that Facebook’s Android apps collect call and text data — but Facebook says it got permission

By Matt Weinberger

Over the weekend, one Dylan McKay downloaded the archive of all his Facebook data — and found that the social network had been keeping extensive records of the calls and texts he had made from his Android phone.

A report from Ars Technica corroborated McKay’s findings not long after: under certain circumstances, Facebook’s Android apps will keep logs showing the names of the people you called and texted, how long the conversation lasted, and the other party’s phone number.

McKay’s original Twitter post has almost 40,000 retweets at the time of writing. Privacy fears around Facebook are at an all-time high following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where 50 million users had their data used improperly by a political research firm.

First, Facebook says, it didn’t do anything without permission. It says that keeping logs of call and text data is an opt-in feature on two of its Android apps: You get prompted to share that data upon installing Facebook Messenger, and the low-data Facebook Lite. Keeping those records “helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about, and provide you with a better experience across Facebook,” says the blog.