Facebook ‘Unintentionally’ Collected Millions of User Email Contacts Without Consent

Facebook “unintentionally” collected the email contacts of as many as 1.5 million users without consent, the company said Thursday, citing a design flaw from 2016. The issue stems from the platform verifying new accounts via user email passwords. When the verification process was altered in May 2016, language informing users of email contact collection was removed, though the uploading continued. The company ended email password verification for new users earlier this month, a spokesperson said. “These contacts were not shared with anyone and we're deleting them,” the company said, noting that affected users will be notified.