Facebook Fails to Implement Privacy Feature Months After Announcement

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Recode reports that despite announcing a new privacy feature in May at the height of the Cambridge Analytica user data scandal, social media giant Facebook has failed to implement an option that would allow Facebook users to clear the browsing history connected to their Facebook profile. The product was to be titled “Clear History” and gained a lot of attention as Facebook attempted to regain public trust after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Clear History feature himself during Facebook’s developer conference and was seen a Facebook’s attempt to demonstrate how serious they were about user privacy. Zuckerberg wrote in a post: “This is an example of the kind of control we think you should have. It’s something privacy advocates have been asking for — and we will work with them to make sure we get it right.”

Seven months later, the Clear History feature has not been mentioned whatsoever by Facebook and the company shows no signs of implementing it anytime soon. Erin Egan, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer, did say at the time of the announcement of the feature that it would take “a few months” to build the feature, but the firm now tells Recode that the project is several more months away from completion.

David Baser, Facebook’s head of the newly formed privacy product team, told Recode: “It’s taking longer than we initially had thought. We did underestimate how long [this] would take.” Baser added that Facebook plans to “deliver the product for testing by spring of 2019.” According to Recode, Baser outlined two reasons for the possible delay of the feature which are:

1. Facebook data is not always stored in the same way it is collected. When Facebook collects web browsing data, for example, that data set includes multiple parts, like your personal identifying information, the website you visited and the timestamp for when the data was collected.

Sometimes those pieces of data are separated and stored in different parts of Facebook’s system. Finding them all so that they can be cleared, especially once they’ve been separated, has been a challenge, Baser said.

2. Facebook currently stores browsing data by date and time, not by which user it belongs to. That means there was no easy way within Facebook’s system to see all the browsing data linked to an individual user. Facebook had to build a new system that stored browsing data categorized at the user level. “That was not very simple, actually, in practice for us to build,” Baser said. It’s an important element, though, because in order for users to go in and clear that data, they need to be able to find it.

It’s very unlikely that Facebook will ever stop collecting data on users,  “We can’t actually stop data collection,” Baser said. “But what we can do is strip away the identifier that would let us know whose it was.” Meaning that if the Clear History feature ever comes to light, it won’t mean that users are safe from Facebook’s online tracking, it will simply mean that they might see one less creepy targeted advertisement.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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