Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by US Intelligence as a National Security Threat

Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including Huawei, a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government. 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 American 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 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 work and education history, relationship status and likes. Facebook officials said that the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phone, not the company’s servers.