Facebook's New Notifications Warn Users When Governments Are Spying On Accounts

Facebook Will Now Tell You If The Government Is Spying On Your Account

Facebook is introducing a new feature that will let us know if the Government is spying on our accounts.

Users will be notified when Facebook has enough evidence that agencies such as NSA and GCHQ are compromising certain accounts.

Chief Security Officer at Facebook, Alex Stamos, introduced the new feature in a blog post and described what the notification would look like on the desktop version of Facebook.

"...we will notify you if we believe your account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state," Stamos wrote on October 17.

However, Stamos was vague about how the organisation will gather its evidence of spying.

"To protect the integrity of our methods and processes, we often won't be able to explain how we attribute certain attacks to suspected attackers," he added.

"That said, we plan to use this warning only in situations where the evidence strongly supports our conclusion."

Stamos also said that if someone does get a warning, it is most likely due to their mobile device or computer being infected with malware rather than a fault with Facebook's system.

He wrote: "It's important to understand that this warning is not related to any compromise of Facebook's platform or systems, and that having an account compromised in this manner may indicate that your computer or mobile device has been infected with malware.

"Ideally, people who see this message should take care to rebuild or replace these systems if possible."

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