F*c*book Doesn't Know What Data They Have or Where it Goes

This is beyond sad. From Vice: Facebook Engineers Admit They Don’t Know What They Do With Your Data

I'm tempted to just drop the subtitle, and bolt, but here is the subtitle anyway.

In a court hearing, a Facebook engineer said Facebook’s engineering culture is “terrifying.”

In a court case, recently made public, F*c*book "engineers" admitted that they have no idea what happens to the data they have, or where and how it is stored.

[Daniel] Garrie [the Discovery Special Master] called the hearing in question with Zarashow and Elia to figure out exactly where personal data may be stored in 55 Facebook subsystems. The two engineers struggled to answer some relatively basic questions, and were surprisingly candid when talking about the results of Facebook’s open culture when it comes to developing software and systems.

So if they can't answer the question about where data is stored in the 55 different systems, and how those systems communicate, or who can see that data, how can they swear that they are abiding by various data privacy laws, or safeguarding the data of children, or anything else?

This is all about the court case dealing with Cambridge Analytica. Between what I know of that, and what was revealed by these two in the hearing, I think the answer to the questions I asked about F*c*book and privacy are problem, "They can't." But hey, that's only my guess.

Well, some privacy experts share that assessment, while the company is spouting platitudes about its privacy efforts.

For privacy experts who have followed this lawsuit, the admissions made by the engineers in the hearing are damning.

“The personal data of billions of people has been absorbed into the Facebook machine—similar to a drop of ink in a lake—and the world is dealing with the real-life consequences,” Jason Kint, an outspoken critic of Facebook and CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade organization that represents journalism publishers, told Motherboard.

Kint referred to a metaphor used by a Facebook engineer in the leaked document published by Motherboard.

Click thru for even more depressing details.

Another article from The Intercept_ on the subject: Facebook Engineers: We Have No Idea Where We Keep All Your Personal Data.

From that article we get a bit more on the background. Cambridge Analytica became a scandal which precipitated a lawsuit. When told to turn over the data F*c*book had on the plaintiffs, they gave only the most surface data that you would get from Download Your Information, and said anything else was outside the scope of the lawsuit.

In 2020, the judge disagreed with the company’s contention, ruling that Facebook’s initial disclosure had indeed been too sparse and that the company must reveal data obtained through its oceanic ability to surveil people across the internet and make monetizable predictions about their next moves.

That's where the legal process has run into a stonewall; a wall known as the "engineering culture" at F*c*book. That is in quotes because in reality, it is the management culture of the company that allows chaos like this to reign.

The hat tip for all this goes to Schneier on Security: Facebook Has No Idea What Data It Has.