Twitter apologized Monday for inadvertently collecting and sharing the location data of users with a “trusted partner,” adding that the issue had been fixed and the company is “working hard to make sure it does not happen again.”
“You trust us to be careful with your data, and because of that, we want to be open with you when we make a mistake,” Twitter wrote in a statement. “We have discovered that we were inadvertently collecting and sharing iOS location data with one of our trusted partners in certain circumstances.”
{mosads}Specifically, Twitter announced that it had unintentionally collected the location data of iOS users that had more than one account and had opted to use a location feature on one of these accounts. Twitter said in some cases, it may have collected the location information for an account not authorized for location features if the user was on the same device for both accounts.
It was not clear how many Twitter users may have been affected.
Twitter said it had also accidentally sent user location data to a third-party company during the “real time bidding” advertising process, noting that the data has since been deleted as part of the third-party company’s “normal process.”
Twitter said that all of the users impacted by the data privacy incident have been contacted to let them know this issue has been fixed, and urged all users to check their privacy settings to make sure they were sharing only the information they wanted to with Twitter.
“We’re very sorry this happened,” Twitter wrote. “We recognize and appreciate the trust you place in us and are committed to earning that trust every day.”