Twitter reveals unauthorised data use for ad purposes

The social network Twitter said overnight that user’s personal data had been used for advertising purposes, without their consent and despite dedicated settings to counteract such events. A Twitter statement said the fault was corrected Monday and that an investigation was being conducted to determine how many people had been affected, while advising users to verify their data sharing settings. The situation involved two cases, the first one arising if users clicked or viewed an advertisement for a mobile application and then interacted with it since May 2018. “In that case, we may have shared certain data (e.g., country code, if you engaged with the ad and when, information about the ad, etc) with trusted measurement and advertising partners, even if you didn’t give us permission to do so,” the statement said.

SOURCE: AFP