O Facebook admitted having shared user data with four Chinese companies, including the telecommunications group Huawei. For this reason, the USA considers this sharing to be a threat to national security.
Chinese manufacturers Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO and TCL are among the companies with which the group has shared data in a controlled manner, Facebook vice president Francisco Varela admitted in a statement. The sharing was part of an agreement between Facebook and the manufacturers to facilitate user access to social network services.
The news comes after an investigation of the newspaper The New York Times have revealed that Facebook has entered into agreements with 60 mobile device manufacturers, who have had access, without explicit consent, to various users' personal data such as religion, political trends, friends, events, and marital status.
"We want to clarify that all the information shared with Huawei was stored on the devices and not on the Huawei servers," said group vice president Francisco Varela.
Government agencies and the US military recently banned mobile phones manufactured by Huawei due to security concerns. Huawei was under investigation by the United States Congress, which in a 2012 report found that the firm has a close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
In May Zuckerberg was heard in the European Parliament and apologized for the misuse of personal data of users.
