Facebook is investigating a claim that an employee potentially used access granted by their job to stalk women online, the social media giant confirmed in a statement to Motherboard on Monday.
“Although we can’t comment on any individual personnel matters, we are aware of the situation and investigating,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote in an email.
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The claim came from Jackie Stokes, founder of Spyglass Security, in a tweet posted Monday.
“I’ve been made aware that a security engineer currently employed at Facebook is likely using privileged access to stalk women online. I have Tinder logs. What should I do with this information?” Stokes’ tweet read.
Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
In a follow-up tweet, Stokes wrote multiple senior Facebook employees had reached out over the claim. Stokes told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message that she provided the relevant details to Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer.
At the time of writing, Motherboard does not have further specifics on the alleged incident.
Regarding the potential that an employee was using their work-granted access to information for abuse, the Facebook spokesperson elaborated “We maintain strict technical controls and policies to restrict employee access to user data. Access is scoped by job function, and designated employees are only allowed to access the amount of information that’s necessary to carry out their job responsibilities, such as responding to bug reports, account support inquiries, or valid legal requests.”
The spokesperson also said “We have a zero-tolerance approach to abuse, and improper behavior results in termination.”
