Facebook has just launched Messenger Rooms, a video chat app with the ability to add up to 50 people ... [+]
Facebook has just launched Messenger Rooms, a video chat app with the ability to add up to 50 people in a virtual room. In a blog, the company has outlined the security and privacy it claims underpin the service, taking a clear swipe at rival app Zoom.
But when Facebook talks about “privacy” in Rooms, it defines this as the ability to block or report people, as well as the option to “lock” a room to prevent uninvited guests from crashing your chat.
So it’s not that private at all–Messenger Rooms uses the same data collection policies as Facebook, which includes sharing your information with third parties.
“Privacy settings on Facebook don’t protect data from Facebook, or its partners’ exploitation of the data,” says Rowenna Fielding, a privacy expert and head of individual rights and ethics at Protecture.
“Data mining and profiling are the core of their business model–governance and ethics have been notably absent from the start and continue to be so.”
How Facebook defines privacy
Facebook’s chief privacy officer Erin Egan says Facebook “built Rooms with privacy in mind.”
You don’t have to have a Facebook account to join a Room, which is certainly a good thing–although the person who creates the Room does need to be on Facebook. Egan outlines how the person who creates the room controls the settings for who can join, how easy a room is to find and whether to enable or share a link.
In a clear swipe at Zoom, which has come under recent scrutiny after incidents of “Zoom bombing,” Facebook Rooms can be locked to stop anyone from joining during the call, and the Room creator can remove unwanted participants. Meanwhile, Rooms are not searchable by name on Facebook.
So Facebook defines privacy as the ability to block and report people, as well as lock Rooms. In addition, Facebook says: “Regardless of whether you use Rooms through your Facebook account or join as a guest, we don’t watch or listen to your audio or video calls.”
But then it says: “Across our services we work with outside vendors that help us do things like reviewing and addressing the issues reported by users and may share information with these partners like the name of the room, and who’s in it, in order to do this work.”
It also states: “As with other parts of Facebook, we collect data from Rooms regardless of whether you joined through one of our apps or without logging into an account. The main purpose of this data is to provide the service and improve the product experience.”
If you don’t have a Facebook account, Facebook says it receives some data such as your device and browser type, your product usage information, and technical information.
Facebook claims audio and video from Rooms won’t be used to inform ads and says it doesn’t show ads in Rooms. In addition, Facebook says it doesn’t sell any of your information to “anyone,” and claims it “never will.”
It’s all about how Facebook is marketing the service–privacy is defined in a way that isn’t strictly accurate. “Marketeers like to advertise privacy in the form of blocking and reporting people, but the real privacy issue lies in sharing data with third parties which Facebook admit they will still do with their partners,” ESET cybersecurity specialist Jake Moore says.
At the same time, Moore points out, Facebook's sharing platform is far greater than Zoom. “Zoom can only share limited information such as name and email address. However, Facebook will be able to share public information from your social media account too.”
It’s also worth noting that like Zoom and Facebook Messenger which Rooms is built on, Rooms is not end-to-end encrypted. This contrasts to Facebook owned WhatsApp, which is end-to-end encrypted and has added the ability to make group video calls.
Should you use Facebook Rooms?
It’s a new service that sounds like it’s highly functional, so should you use Rooms, or is it a privacy nightmare? It’s about how much you trust Facebook, and how much you trust the alternatives.
Facebook has got in trouble in the past, when it emerged it wasn’t being clear about contractors listening to and transcribing Messenger calls.
Facebook may think that Rooms is an alternative to Zoom, and it is, for less private activities such as exercise classes. But it’s not end-to-end encrypted and it’s not particularly private, since it still collects data like other Facebook services.
If you want more secure and private video chat, you should forget Facebook Messenger Rooms, and try out Signal for one to ones, and an alternative such as Jitsi for larger group chats.
