A plan to mine data from Commonwealth Games visitors who use free and fast wifi in Australia was abandoned Thursday as a privacy scandal swirls around social media giant Facebook. The local Gold Coast council is offering a service up to 10 times normal speed after laying new fibre cables to coincide with the multi-sport event next month, which is contested between nations that are members of the Commonwealth. READ | Facebook data concern at Commonwealth Games 2018But authorities had a re-think after Facebook became embroiled in a snowballing scandal over the hijacking of personal data from millions of its users. The app was downloaded by 270,000 people, but also scooped up their friends’ data without consent -- as was possible under Facebook’s rules at the time. “The data that might be collected by council, depending on a person’s Facebook privacy settings, would include how many friends they have, who their friends are, what they’ve liked on Facebook and their photos,” he said.

Source: Hindustan Times March 22, 2018 11:15 UTC