Facebook Fires Employee Who Allegedly Used Data Access To Stalk Women (vice.com)

After a member of the information security community provided evidence to Facebook's chief information security officer, the company has terminated a security engineer who allegedly used their work position to stalk women online. From a report: On Monday, Motherboard reported that Facebook was investigating a claim that one of its employees used access to data granted by their job to stalk women online. Facebook has since terminated the employee, Facebook confirmed to Motherboard on Tuesday, coincidentally shortly after the social media giant announced its upcoming dating service. "We are investigating this as a matter of urgency. It's important that people's information is kept secure and private when they use Facebook," Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief information security officer, told Motherboard in a statement.

Comments

Not far enough

[ausekilis]

Should this evidence have been provided to authorities?

Just how far did this stalking go? Did he ever act on any of the information? Make unrequested contact or show up on doorsteps?

This sort of abuse of power *should* get him fired. Depending on his other actions, it should also get him arrested. If someone in the medical or financial fields use their access to someones private information (e.g. home address or phone number), then they'd get slapped with some "hacking" or "unlawful computer access" charges. What gives?

Re:Not far enough

[Anonymous Coward]

What he was doing was barely within the lines of "stalking". It was simply online "stalking". Sending them messages, hitting them up on Tinder, and such. Nothing in real life and all of it easily blocked if desired.

In case nobody articulates this to you today .. you're an asshole.

Sorry, using your admin access to get information about women so you can hit them up on Tinder is a nail your testicles to the wall about a foot above your belt kind of offence, and it escalates from there.

On behalf of those who have gone through security clearance processes, and take seriously protecting data ... fuck you.

This guy has a professional responsibility to not be a douche and abuse his access. That kind of thing should get your dumb ass fired.

I handle sensitive data, and I go to great pains to never actually look at it, unless it's directly related to my job ... and even then only as much as is strictly required.

If you can't recognise this is part of the job, get into a different line of work.

My guess is Facebook, like so many other places, has a terrible culture of entitlement and "hey Bob, check this out". And shit like this really pisses me off, because the last thing the industry needs is the belief that admins are peeking at private files for their own sleazy use.

This kind of shit is entirely inexcusable.

Re:Not far enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how far did this stalking go? Did he ever act on any of the information? Make unrequested contact or show up on doorsteps?

It's a sad world we live in when merely making contact with someone is considered an arrestable offence. Or, let's be frank, making contact with someone while being the wrong sex: no one would be calling for the arrest of a woman who did such a thing.

He should be - and has been - fired for abusing his position with Facebook. But arresting him for phoning someone or knocking on their door would be simply mad. What the heck kind of police state would do something like that?

Who watches?

[TimMD909]

Who watches the watchmen?

Do as I say, not as I do

[AdamThor]

So, one guy from FB stalks someone -- fire him!
But when a company (advertisement) stalks me across the internet -- that's business!