Facebook discovers bug that accessed private pictures of 6.8m users

Social media giants Facebook says it has discovered a bug that allowed outsiders access to private photos, potentially affecting some 6.8 million people who use the service.

“We have fixed the issue but, because of this bug, some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual,” said Tomer Bar, an engineering director at the company.

The announcement is the latest in a string of problems the social network has had with consumer data. This most recent incident is somewhat less severe than previous ones.

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Around 1,500 third-party apps had access to users’ uploaded photos — even if they had not posted them publicly to Facebook — from Sept. 13 to Sept. 25.

Facebook said the number of people affected was probably smaller than 6.8 million, because it doubted that all 1,500 apps gained access to the social network during that 12-day period.

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