Facebook has been paying children as young as 13 to let them spy on their smartphones, a new report has revealed.
The report, by TechCrunch , found that teens in the US had been paid up to $20 (£15.30) to install a VPN on their smartphone that spied on them.
It remains unclear if the scheme was also rolled out to international Facebook users.
TechCrunch claims that the scheme was run through an app called Facebook Research, which provided Facebook with ‘nearly limitless access’ to a user’s device.
This included access to their private messages, location history and web browsing activity.
In response to the report, Facebook has claimed that the research was ‘standard practice.’
But perhaps tellingly, the programme was ended, within hours of TechCrunch’s report being published.
In a statement obtained by the BBC, a spokesperson for Facebook said: “Key facts about this market research programme are being ignored.
"Despite early reports, there was nothing ‘secret’ about this; it was literally called the Facebook Research App.
"It wasn’t ‘spying’ as all of the people who signed up to participate went through a clear on-boarding process asking for their permission and were paid to participate.
"Finally, less than 5% of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental consent forms.”
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Facebook claims that this parental consent was obtained via a ‘third-party.’
But when the BBC tested the app by pretending to be a 14-year-old, they were never asked for parental consent.
Facebook maintains that the research was ‘aimed at helping understand how people use their mobile devices’ and that information was not shared.
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