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Meta said it is suing “scraping-for-hire” service Voyager Labs for allegedly using fake accounts, proprietary software and a vast network of IP addresses to surreptitiously collect massive amounts of personal data from users of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social networks. networking sites.
“Suspect created and used more than 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts and its surveillance software to scrape the visible profile information of more than 600,000 Facebook users, including posts, likes, friend lists, photos and comments, and information from Facebook groups and pages,” attorneys wrote in Meta’s complaint. “Suspect designed the surveillance software to hide its presence and activity from Meta and others, and sold and licensed the data it scraped for profit.”
“Revealing individuality”
California-based Facebook users who had their data wiped, Meta said, included “employees of nonprofits, universities, news media organizations, health care facilities, the United States Armed Forces, and local, state, and federal government agencies.” as well as full-time parents, retirees and trade unionists.” Meta said the data collection and use of fake accounts violate the terms of service.
Israel-based Voyager Labs bills itself as an “AI-powered research service” that collects data from “billions of ‘human pixels’ and signals” and uses artificial intelligence to map relationships, track geographic locations and provide other personal data to “agencies”. in charge of public safety.”
“By leveraging this vast ocean of data, they can gain actionable insights about individuals, groups and topics, then dive deep to discover even more,” company officials wrote in marketing materials appended to the Meta complaint. The slogan on Voyager Labs stationery is, “Bringing individuality to light.”
In one case, the service used Facebook posts to identify the full names of an Italian marathoner and his wife who were infected with COVID-19. The service then provided a list of the friends and individuals who had interacted with the runner. In another case, Voyager Labs identified patrons of a British pub who may have contracted the deadly virus.
Voyager Labs’ clients include the Los Angeles Police Department, according to the exhibits. A department member’s testimony said that Voyager Labs was “able to identify a few new targets in a much easier to read format” and “was able to process warrants much faster that were much easier to read.”
Images of some of the exhibits are in the gallery below:
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Meta v. Voyager Labs Complaint
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Meta seeks a permanent injunction that would prevent Voyager Labs from continuing the practice.
In the lawsuit announcement, Meta Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation Jessica Romero wrote:
Voyager developed and used proprietary software to launch scraping campaigns against Facebook and Instagram and websites such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Telegram. Voyager designed its scraping software to use fake accounts to scrape data that can be accessed by a user when logged into Facebook, including user profile information, messages, friend lists, photos, and comments. Voyager used a diverse system of computers and networks in different countries to hide its activities, including when Meta verified or checked the fake accounts. Voyager did not compromise Facebook, instead using fake accounts to scrape publicly visible information.
Our lawsuit alleges that Voyager violated our Terms of Service against fake accounts and unauthorized and automated scraping. We are seeking a permanent injunction against Voyager to protect people from scraping-for-hire services. Companies like Voyager are part of an industry that provides scraping services to anyone, regardless of the users they target and for what purpose, including as a way to profile people for criminal behavior. This industry covertly collects information that people share with their communities, family and friends, without oversight or accountability, and in a way that could harm people’s civil rights.
Voyager Labs representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is at least the second time that Meta has taken legal action over alleged data scraping on its platform. In July, the company sued Octopus, a US subsidiary of a Chinese national high-tech company that allegedly offers to scrape any website, and sued Turkey-based defendant Ekrem Ateş for allegedly using Instagram accounts to collect data from the profiles of more than 350,000 users of that platform.
Not that Meta has completely clean hands when it comes to unwanted scraping. In 2018, several Facebook users who signed up for contact sharing were disturbed to discover that the company had been collecting phone call metadata from their Android phones for years. The data includes names, phone numbers and the length of each call made or received. Facebook denies that the data was collected secretly.
