With all the backlash Facebook has faced with regards to how the company handles user data and also the privacy scandals, the company’s decision to launch the Portal home video device seemed really questionable. However Facebook attempted to playdown concerns by saying that the device doesn’t listen to, view, or keep the contents of your video calls.However it seems that Facebook wants to clarify that and not in a good way, because in a statement made to Recode by a company spokesperson, it seems that while the contents of your calls might not be recorded or kept, how you use the device and the apps that you use on the device could be used to serve targeted ads on other Facebook products and services.
It reads, “Portal voice calling is built on the Messenger infrastructure, so when you make a video call on Portal, we collect the same types of information (i.e. usage data such as length of calls, frequency of calls) that we collect on other Messenger-enabled devices. We may use this information to inform the ads we show you across our platforms. Other general usage data, such as aggregate usage of apps, etc., may also feed into the information that we use to serve ads.”
However according to Rafa Camargo, the product VP in charge of Portal, he claims that this means that the data could potentially be used, but apparently Facebook doesn’t intend to use it. Whether or not Facebook plans on keeping their word remains to be seen, but we imagine that for a company plagued with so many privacy scandals, the Portal definitely seems like it would be a hard sell.