Now Twitter admits ‘harvesting’ users’ phone contacts without telling the owners
Twitter has admitted harvesting contact lists from its customers’ mobile phone address books without telling them.
The website said it copied lists of email addresses and phone numbers from those who used its smartphone application, amid claims it kept them on its database for 18 months.
Its management yesterday agreed to change guidance to users about what it does with their personal information, after a storm of protest from privacy campaigners in the U.S.
The breach occurs when users of the micro-blogging site click the ‘Find Friends’ option to see if any of their contacts are also on it.
Many of them did not know this meant the site then uploaded their entire address book and stored it afterwards.
Twitter spokesman Carolyn Penner said it would now offer users the option to ‘upload your address book’ or ‘import your contacts’ to make it clearer.
She said: ‘We want to be clear and transparent in our communications with users. Along those lines, in our next app updates, which are coming soon, we are updating the language associated with Find Friends – to be more explicit.’
The practice by a giant such as Twitter raises more concerns about the privacy implications posed by social networking sites which are used by an estimated 37million Britons
Tags: apple, phone data theft, twitter