Facebook fires employee who used company resources to stalk women

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Facebook on Wednesday, May 2, fired an employee following a security researcher’s claims that the unnamed employee used company resources and the access granted by his position to stalk women online.

Facebook confirmed the firing in a statement. “It’s important that people’s information is kept secure and private when they use Facebook,” a spokesman said. “It’s why we have strict policy controls and technical restrictions so employees only access the data they need to do their jobs — for example to fix bugs, manage customer support issues or respond to valid legal requests.

“Employees who abuse these controls will be fired,” the spokesman added.

The stalking accusations came from Jackie Stokes, the founder of security firm Spyglass Security, in a tweet she wrote on Monday, April 30.

“I’ve been made aware that a security engineer currently employed at Facebook is likely using privileged access to stalk women online. I have Tinder logs. What should I do with this information?” Stokes wrote on the microblogging service. 

In a subsequent post, Stokes added multiple senior Facebook employees got in touch with her to look into it. Motherboard’s report on this added Stokes also got in touch with and gave relevant details to Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer.

A Facebook spokesperson explained to Motherboard, “We maintain strict technical controls and policies to restrict employee access to user data. Access is scoped by job function, and designated employees are only allowed to access the amount of information that’s necessary to carry out their job responsibilities, such as responding to bug reports, account support inquiries, or valid legal requests.”

“We have a zero-tolerance approach to abuse, and improper behavior results in termination,” the spokesperson added. 

The allegations come after Facebook is embroiled in a data privacy scandal wherein 87 million Facebook profiles may have been improperly shared with data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. – Rappler.com