NY governor orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

The directive to New York’s Department of State and Department of Financial Services came after the Wall Street Journal showed that Facebook collected personal information from apps on users’ smartphones within seconds of them entering it including weight, blood pressure and ovulation status, accessing data when the user is not signed into Facebook or does not have a Facebook account.

Facebook is facing lawsuits and regulatory inquiries over privacy issues, including a U.S. Federal Trade Commission investigation into disclosures that Facebook shared information belonging to 87 million users with British firm Cambridge Analytica.

New York’s financial services department does not traditionally supervise social media companies directly, but has waded into digital privacy in the financial sector and could have oversight of some app providers that send user data to Facebook.