Hundreds of thousands of developers in China and Russia have access to the personal data of Facebook users, raising concerns among U.S. lawmakers.

(Reuters file photo)

[Compilation of Lin Yuxuan/Comprehensive Report] Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Democratic Congressman Mark Warner and Vice Chairman, Republican Congressman Marco Rubio (Marco Rubio), wrote a letter to Facebook founder Zach on the 6th Berg (Mark Zuckerberg) alleges that documents show that Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has long known that Chinese and Russian developers have access to user personal data that can be used for espionage.

Staff members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had previously met with Facebook executives to decide who would have access to user data and what plans Facebook would have for it, especially measures to protect users' personal data.

Warner and Rubio wrote in the letter that the committee was surprised to find that Facebook concluded at the meeting that many foreign developers, including those in China, had access to the data.

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The letter mentioned that from a lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court of the Northern District of California in 2018, it is known that since at least September 2018, Facebook has been aware of China and many other countries marked as "high risk" , hundreds of thousands of developers have access to a large amount of sensitive user data.

According to Meta internal documents, although Facebook has never been allowed to operate in China, nearly 90,000 Chinese developers still have access to user data, including personal files, photos, private communications, etc.

In addition, 42,000 Russian developers and thousands of Iranian and North Korean developers also had access to the data.

Warner and Rubio said they have serious concerns about the extent of access provided by this channel, which may allow foreign intelligence agencies to conduct malicious incitement, counterintelligence activities and so on.

They raised a series of questions to Zuckerberg, including whether Facebook can identify the developer's identity, whether it can initiate a dialogue with it, and what information may be collected by Chinese and Russian developers.