Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government, the social media company said on Tuesday.
The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by US intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.
The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week.
Facebook gave access to the Chinese device-makers along with other manufacturers – including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung – whose agreements were disclosed by the New York Times on Sunday.
The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. The agreements allowed device-makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates.
Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to BlackBerry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends – including religious and political leanings, work and education history, and relationship status.
Huawei used its private access to feed a “social phone” app that let users view messages and social media accounts in one place, according to the officials.
Facebook representatives said the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phones, not the company’s servers.
Senator John Thune, who leads the Senate Commerce Committee, has demanded that Facebook provide Congress with details about its data partnerships.
“Facebook is learning hard lessons that meaningful transparency is a high standard to meet,” Thune said.
His committee also oversees the Federal Trade Commission, which is investigating Facebook to determine whether the company’s data policies violate a 2011 consent decree with the commission.
Senator Mark Warner pointed out that concerns about Huawei were not new, citing a 2012 congressional report on the “close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei”.
“I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” said Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“All Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were controlled from the get-go – and Facebook approved everything that was built,” said Francisco Varela, a Facebook vice president.
