The US Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with Twitter which provides for a fine of 150 million dollars and obligations for the social network to better respect the confidentiality of personal information.
Authorities accuse the platform of deceiving its users from 2013 to 2019 by hiding from them that it was using their personal data to help companies send them targeted advertising.
The department’s complaint mentions in particular the collection of telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for the stated purpose of securing access to accounts. “But they also used this data to target users with ads,” said Lina M. Khan, the president of the US competition authority (FTC), quoted in the press release from the ministry.
“This practice has affected more than 140 million Twitter users and helped increase the main source of income” of the Californian group, she added. Twitter confirmed in a press release that it had paid this fine and acknowledged an “incident”: “Some email addresses and telephone numbers provided for security purposes may have been inadvertently used for advertising purposes”, detailed Damien Kieran, head of confidentiality.
The San Francisco-based company said it had “fixed the problem” in September 2019. The agreement, which must be approved by a judge, also provides for the company to improve its data privacy practices. In particular, it will have to set up a “comprehensive program on information security”, assess upstream any new product or service that includes the collection of personal data and submit to various independent audits.
The subject of privacy has gained momentum in recent years after several political scandals and widespread awareness around the economic model of social networks. The large free platforms depend, for their turnover, on the mountains of information they collect on their users, at the service of advertisers who pay to target them with personalized advertisements on a very large scale.
“Twitter’s commitment to security and privacy is not a time-limited exercise but a core value that we strive to embody by updating our practices to meet the changing needs of our customers,” said Damien Kieran. Twitter is currently the subject of a controversial takeover bid by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
