“Twitter says the location data has not been retained and it only existed in the partner’s system for a short period of time“
Twitter today said that it accidentally collected and shared location data of a few iOS users with an advertising partner. The social media giant says that it specifically collected data from users who had used more than one account on the same Twitter for iOS app and opted into using the precise location feature in one account. The information collected has not been retained. Instead, it only existed in the partner’s system for a short period of time and was then was deleted, as a part of its policies.
Furthermore, Twitter says that it intended to remove location data sent to the “partner” as part of the advertising process known as real-time bidding, but that didn’t happen as planned. However, the company implemented technical measures to “fuzz” data that was no more precise than the zip code or city. This location data could not be used to determine an address or point users precise movements. Twitter claims that the partner did not receive data such as a Twitter handle or other unique account IDs that could have compromised users’ identities.
In a blog post, Twitter said, “We have confirmed with our partner that the location data has not been retained and that it only existed in their systems for a short time, and was then deleted as part of their normal process.” Twitter said that it has fixed this problem and also alerted the users whose accounts were impacted to let them know the bug has been fixed.