The IT Nerd

Yesterday, I wrote about the fact that Meta was about to launch Threads which is a direct shot at Elon Musk’s Twitter. In that post, I said this:

To be frank, Twitter’s days have been numbered for some time. But Meta’s entry into this space may be the final nail in the coffin for Twitter. And what could make it very interesting is that rumours suggest that Threads will federate with Mastodon. Which could give it a lot more exposure and make it a viable alternative for users and advertisers.

Well, the app is about to become available tomorrow on the Apple App Store as evidenced by this screen shot:

But I would advise you to scroll down and read the not so fine print in terms of what data the app wants to have access to on your iPhone (and I assume that this applies to Android phones too):

So I have to ask. Why on God’s green Earth does a social networking app want to have access to my health & fitness data, my financial info, my purchases, browsing data, and sensitive info which is defined as follows:

Such as racial or ethnic data, sexual orientation, pregnancy or childbirth information, disability, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, political opinion, genetic information, or biometric data

In a way, I am not surprised. This is Meta we’re talking about. And this is a company that has a history of grabbing any and every piece of data that they can get their hands on so that they can make a buck off of it. But in a way I am surprised. Because with this now becoming public, this might actually make it hard for them to get sign ups for Threads. Sure existing Facebook and Instagram users won’t care. But for someone like me who doesn’t use Meta apps, there’s ZERO chance that I would ever sign up for Threads based on this. On top of that, Meta has been smacked down by people like the EU in cases like this or this so often that you would think that they would try not to do things that would draw attention to bad behaviour like the above.

I guess Mark Zuckerberg is using the logic of it’s only illegal if we get caught.

I was actually rooting for Threads to “end” Twitter. Not because I like Meta, but because I hate Twitter and Elon Musk. Now it still might “end” Twitter. But many people who may want to dump Twitter may think twice about joining Threads if they see what the app wants in terms of data.

UPDATE: Damir J Brescic, CISO, Inversion6 sent me this comment on Thread’s privacy issues:

The new Threads app is a messaging platform focused specifically on providing an environment for those who wish to communicate privately, such as friends and family, allowing them to share their locations with one another. However, there are still possible data privacy and cybersecurity risks that issues that I can see. An example of this would be that Threads does not encrypt messages providing an opportunity for hackers, and users are required to have a Facebook (Meta) account to use the platform.

Overall, the Threads app does not have a stated policy for informing its users about any security breaches, leading them vulnerable in the instance of an attack.  For the reasons denoted above, I would caution organizations to think carefully before allowing the use of the Threads app. I would recommend doing further research before downloading and using this app, to understand the possible impact and risk it could pose to your company from a data privacy standpoint.

This entry was posted on July 5, 2023 at 8:43 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Facebook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.