Facebook has reportedly asked big banks to share customers' financial data
Facebook wants to enter the final frontier of user data: finance.
The platform has asked major banks to share financial information about customers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, in an effort to gather more data for new features.
The company proposed the idea to JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and U.S. Bank over the last year, the Journal reports. Facebook was interested in collecting information on card transactions and account balances, in order to show users their balances within Facebook Messenger. The platform also suggested offering fraud alerts and other features.
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Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which 87 million users' data was improperly accessed by a third-party data firm, is still fresh in people's minds, however. At least one bank has turned down Facebook's ideas due to data privacy concerns, and other bank executives are reportedly wary of giving Facebook too much information.
The social media giant asked banks for information about where users are shopping, in exchange for a Messenger feature that would make it easier for people to make purchases in-app. Facebook said it wouldn't use the data for targeted ads, or share it with third parties. Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
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Summer Meza has worked at The Week since 2018, serving as a staff writer, a news writer and currently the deputy editor. As a proud news generalist, she edits everything from political punditry and science news to personal finance advice and film reviews. Summer has previously written for Newsweek and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, covering national politics, transportation and the cannabis industry.
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