Facebook confirms data sharing with Huawei, 3 other Chinese firms
New York, June 6 : Facebook has admitted sharing users' data with Chinese company Huawei -- facing the heat in the US over data privacy concerns -- along with three other China-based smartphone makers Lenovo, OPPO and TCL.
According to a report in Financial Times on Tuesday, Francisco Varela, vice president of Mobile Partnerships at Facebook, said that many technology companies have worked with Huawei.
"Facebook's integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO and TCL were controlled from the get-go -- and we approved the Facebook experiences these companies built," Varela said in a statement.
"Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei's servers," the Facebook executive added.
The Facebook confirmation came a day after The New York Times reported that the social media giant provided access to users' data to at least 60 different device makers -- including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung and BlackBerry.
There are concerns in the US among the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Federal Communications Commission and House Intelligence Committee over Huawei devices.
In February, FBI Director Chris Wray said the FBI was "deeply concerned" about the risks posed by Huawei and ZTE. The US military has banned phones made by Huawei and ZTE.
According to Senator Mark Warner, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the concerns about Huawei were not new.
"The news that Facebook provided privileged access to Facebook's API [application programming interface] to Chinese device makers like Huawei and TCL raises legitimate concerns, and I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers," he said in a statement late Tuesday.
"Concerns about Huawei aren't new - they were widely publicised beginning in 2012, when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a well-read report on the close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei," Warner added.
The Senate Commerce Committee has already sent a letter to Facebook over the reports that it shared data with device makers.
Earlier, the social network defended the pacts with device makers, saying that these partnerships do not raise privacy concerns.
Facebook said that the partners signed agreements that prevented people's information from being used for any other purpose than to recreate Facebook-like experiences.
"Partners could not integrate the user's Facebook features with their devices without the user's permission," Ime Archibong, Facebook's Vice President of Product Partnerships, said in a statement.
Facebook launched the device-integrated APIs about a decade ago and said that all these partnerships were built on a common interest -- the desire for people to be able to use Facebook whatever their device or operating system.
"Given that these APIs enabled other companies to recreate the Facebook experience, we controlled them tightly from the get-go," Archibong said.
Facebook said that it had already ended 22 of the device partnerships.
"Now that iOS and Android are so popular, fewer people rely on these APIs to create bespoke Facebook experiences. It's why we announced in April that we're winding down access to them. We've already ended 22 of these partnerships," Archibong noted.
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UN: India calls on international community to act together against ISIS, Al Qaeda
United Nations (PTI): India has called on the international community to act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies, underlining that terrorism is an “existential threat” to international peace and security.
“Terrorism is an existential threat to international peace and security. It knows no borders, nationality, or race, and is a challenge that the international community must combat collectively,” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Raghoo Puri said on Wednesday.
In remarks to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) annual ambassadorial level briefing to Member States, Puri recalled the April 2025 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, carried out by The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN listed terror organisation. The terror attack led to the loss of lives of 26 tourists.
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“We must act together against ISIS and Al Qaeda and their proxies,” he said, adding that as a country which itself has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for the past nearly three decades, “India is acutely aware of the socio-economic and human cost of terrorism, especially for its victims.”
India added its voice in stressing on the importance of the Global Counter Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) as a central instrument for multilateral cooperation.
Puri said India will remain steadfast and engaged in the consultations for the 9th review of the GCTS, assuring full cooperation to co-facilitators Finland and Morocco during negotiations in the process.
Puri also highlighted that as Chair of the Counter Terrorism Committee in 2022, India has striven to bring these principles into the counter-terrorism architecture of the UN and into the debate on terrorism at the United Nations.
“Our follow up initiatives both in New York and around the world stand testimony to our commitment,” including the ‘Delhi Declaration’ - a landmark document to deal with the issue of countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes, an issue Puri said is of acute importance for several Member States.
In October 2022, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC), chaired by India that year, had organised a special meeting in New Delhi and Mumbai on the overarching theme of ‘Countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes’.
As an outcome of the special meeting, the committee had adopted the ‘Delhi Declaration’ on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes.
India continues to work closely with the UN via its various entities to build capacity and make its partners future ready to take on the ever-evolving scourge of terrorism, he said.
