Meta sues company that used fake accounts to scrape user data

Meta files a lawsuit against the British company Voyager Labs. Facebook’s parent company claims that Voyager Labs used 38,000 fake accounts to collect personal data from 600,000 Facebook users.

The fake accounts would give Voyager Labs access to the users’ public profile information, which is accessible to any logged in user. The scraped data consisted of profile information, such as posts, likes, friends, photos and comments. Meta says that Voyager Labs’ fake accounts have now been disabled and has asked the court to ban the company from Facebook and Instagram.

Voyager Labs is said to be targeting companies that want to monitor social media platforms without being noticed. Previously, the company’s software deployed by the Los Angeles police. This allowed the LAPD to easily monitor the accounts of thousands of online friends of potential suspects.

Meta has also been in a legal conflict with the Israeli spyware maker NSO Group for years. The tech giant claims that the company exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp to infect 1,400 smartphones with spyware. Among the affected users are said to be a hundred journalists and human rights activists.

Image: Solen Feyissa