Facebook using Israelis from notorious unit to spy on users

Facebook has apparently been using a company founded by veterans of a secret cyber intel group within the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to spy on users and destroy competition. Details have been reported by Haaretz, which cites the findings of a US lawsuit against the social media giant.

The scandal involves Israeli firm Onavo which was bought by Facebook in 2013. The suit filed by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) a few days ago claims that Onavo's technology played a central role in Facebook's efforts to thwart its competitors.

Describing Onavo as a "user surveillance company", the FTC claimed that Facebook used the Israeli firm to learn about rival apps and determine which could be a potential threat to be neutralised before they get too influential. Concerns have been raised about how Facebook went about this, and questions are being asked about online security and the unregulated manner in which data is being gathered.

According to Haaretz, in 2018 Apple removed Onavo Protect – a free "secure connection" app that people could use while using Facebook – from its online store. It was discovered that the Onavo app violated Apple's privacy policy by collecting information about iPhone users and their online usage of apps that don't belong to Facebook.

In the same year the British parliament published internal documents which showed that Facebook was monitoring users as a means of dealing with potential rivals. The documents included 200 pages of email correspondence dated 2012 to 2015 in which senior Facebook officials discussed how to conceal Onavo's ability to gather information about unwitting users.

America's TechCrunch newspaper reported today that Australia's Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is suing Facebook over its use of Onavo in 2016 and 2017 to spy on users for commercial purposes. Commenting on the role played by the Israeli firm, ACCC chair Rod Sims said that, "Through Onavo Protect, Facebook was collecting and using the very detailed and valuable personal activity data of thousands of Australian consumers for its own commercial purposes, which we believe is completely contrary to the promise of protection, secrecy and privacy that was central to Facebook's promotion of this app."