Facebook scans system libraries from their Android app user’s phone in the background and uploads them to their server

After an in-depth exploration of the Facebook code on Android app, the developers found that Facebook used the “Global Library Collector” to collect the user’s system library information and upload them to the Facebook server. Facebook has never been a benchmark in the industry, not even notorious for privacy incidents. Previously, the company used Facebook Research VPN to collect all the information of users. And the latest facts prove that Facebook apps may do something that might be considered unethical.

Jane Manchun Wong, an application researcher from Hong Kong, found her Facebook Android app scanning the phone, indexing the system library and uploading it to a Facebook server.

Facebook scans system libraries from their Android app user’s phone in the background and uploads them to their server

This is called "Global Library Collector" at Facebook, known as "GLC" in app’s code

It periodically uploads metadata of system libraries to the server pic.twitter.com/olwk1BPMoQ

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 30, 2019

Jane Manchun Wong wrote on a tweet: “Facebook can upload the entire files of all system libraries to their server through their Android apps The app compresses each system library file using gzip and uploads them to server Interestingly, the files are uploaded to a specific collection that’s related to my phone.”

It’s unclear what the purpose of this data collection is, how Facebook handles the data, and whether the user agreement covers uploads.