Facebook bought VPN app Onavo in 2013 for $120m (£92m). The Onavo Protect app has been classed as spyware. The merger allowed Facebook to monitor its competition and target companies for acquisition.

Arising from this monitoring, Facebook reportedly saw that encrypted messaging platform WhatsApp was being used twice as often as Facebook Messenger, informing Facebook’s consequent $19bn (£14bn) purchase of the app in 2014.

The VPN app was used to report detailed user information to Facebook, including whether a user’s screen was on or off.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook users between the ages of 13 and 35 have been paid up to $20/month since 2016 to install a VPN app based on Onavo Protect (known as Facebook Research). Ads for the app were targeted towards teens aged 13-17 on Instagram and Snapchat, encouraging them to take part in a paid research study. Once installed, the user merely needs to keep the VPN running and sending data to Facebook in order to receive their payments.

The project (nicknamed ‘Project Atlas’) was administrated through three different beta testing services in order to hide Facebook’s involvement. The sign-up pages for the app do not explicitly mention Facebook, although one beta testing service mentions Facebook in its set-up manual for the app and minors are required to obtain parental consent though a form which acknowledges Facebook’s involvement. However, a BBC investigation found that some minors could still install the app without parental consent.

When the app is installed, the user must give access to their most sensitive phone activity, including private messages. Security research Will Strafach told TechCrunch that the app could collect private messages in social media apps, chats from instant messaging apps (including photos and videos), emails, web searches, web browsing activity and ongoing location information. According to the report, users were even asked to screenshot their Amazon order history page.

Strafach added that the way Facebook requested access (“install Root Certificate”) meant that users could not reasonably consent to giving Facebook this access, because “there is no good way to articulate just how much power is handed to Facebook when you do this.”

Last year, Apple banned apps which collect data about the usage of other apps and informed Facebook that its original Onavo Protect app was violating its policy. Facebook agreed to remove it from the App Store in August 2018.

Since the release of the TechCrunch findings, Facebook has announced that it will also discontinue use of its iOS Facebook Research app. The app will continue to be offered to Android users. Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that it was running the program to collect data on usage habits, although it rejected accusations that the app was “spying” on users and stated that fewer than five per cent of participants were teens.

Facebook’s placement of the Facebook Research app on the App Store following Apple’s warnings over Onavo Protect is unlikely to help mend the deteriorating relationship between the two tech giants. Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly criticised Facebook for its intrusive attitude to user privacy, commenting with regards to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that Apple executives had chosen to forgo potential profits in favour of user privacy.

Facebook bought VPN app Onavo in 2013 for $120m (£92m). The Onavo Protect app has been classed as spyware. The merger allowed Facebook to monitor its competition and target companies for acquisition.

Arising from this monitoring, Facebook reportedly saw that encrypted messaging platform WhatsApp was being used twice as often as Facebook Messenger, informing Facebook’s consequent $19bn (£14bn) purchase of the app in 2014.

The VPN app was used to report detailed user information to Facebook, including whether a user’s screen was on or off.

According to TechCrunch, Facebook users between the ages of 13 and 35 have been paid up to $20/month since 2016 to install a VPN app based on Onavo Protect (known as Facebook Research). Ads for the app were targeted towards teens aged 13-17 on Instagram and Snapchat, encouraging them to take part in a paid research study. Once installed, the user merely needs to keep the VPN running and sending data to Facebook in order to receive their payments.

The project (nicknamed ‘Project Atlas’) was administrated through three different beta testing services in order to hide Facebook’s involvement. The sign-up pages for the app do not explicitly mention Facebook, although one beta testing service mentions Facebook in its set-up manual for the app and minors are required to obtain parental consent though a form which acknowledges Facebook’s involvement. However, a BBC investigation found that some minors could still install the app without parental consent.

When the app is installed, the user must give access to their most sensitive phone activity, including private messages. Security research Will Strafach told TechCrunch that the app could collect private messages in social media apps, chats from instant messaging apps (including photos and videos), emails, web searches, web browsing activity and ongoing location information. According to the report, users were even asked to screenshot their Amazon order history page.

Strafach added that the way Facebook requested access (“install Root Certificate”) meant that users could not reasonably consent to giving Facebook this access, because “there is no good way to articulate just how much power is handed to Facebook when you do this.”

Last year, Apple banned apps which collect data about the usage of other apps and informed Facebook that its original Onavo Protect app was violating its policy. Facebook agreed to remove it from the App Store in August 2018.

Since the release of the TechCrunch findings, Facebook has announced that it will also discontinue use of its iOS Facebook Research app. The app will continue to be offered to Android users. Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that it was running the program to collect data on usage habits, although it rejected accusations that the app was “spying” on users and stated that fewer than five per cent of participants were teens.

Facebook’s placement of the Facebook Research app on the App Store following Apple’s warnings over Onavo Protect is unlikely to help mend the deteriorating relationship between the two tech giants. Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly criticised Facebook for its intrusive attitude to user privacy, commenting with regards to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that Apple executives had chosen to forgo potential profits in favour of user privacy.