Harvard student who lost Facebook internship raises privacy questions

1	Facebook apparently thought one potential summer intern was up to more mischief than good.
2	A Harvard University student who created a tool that allowed Facebook users to track a person's location using the company's messaging app data got his summer internship offer at the social media giant rescinded after exposing the privacy flaws, a case study published Tuesday in the Harvard Journal of Technology Science revealed.
3	Student Aran Khanna attracted media attention after he wrote an online blog post in May about an app called Marauder's Map -- a reference to a magical document in the "Harry Potter" book series.
4	About 85,000 people downloaded the tool, and more than 170 news outlets linked to the "Stalking Your Friends with Facebook Messenger" post, according to the study.
5	"We are constantly being told how we are losing privacy with the increasing digitization of our lives; however, the consequences never seem tangible," Khanna wrote in the May blog post.
6	The study also noted that Khanna was scheduled to start a summer internship at Facebook in software development on June 1, but he received a call days after the app was posted saying he violated the company's user agreement when he used the site's data.
7	The company's head of global human resources and recruiting then sent an email stating that his blog post did not reflect the "high ethical standards" around user privacy expected of interns, Khanna wrote.
8	"This mapping tool scraped Facebook data in a way that violated our terms, and those terms exist to protect people's privacy and safety. Despite being asked repeatedly to remove the code, the creator of this tool left it up. This is wrong and it's inconsistent with how we think about serving our community," Facebook spokesman Matt Steinfeld said in a statement to this newspaper on Thursday.
9	Steinfeld added that the company doesn't "dismiss employees for exposing privacy flaws," but does "take it seriously when someone misuses user data and puts people at risk."
10	Facebook users are now asked when they download Messenger if the app can use their location.
11	They can also change that permission in settings and send their location to family and friends, a feature that the social network said they were developing before Khanna's post.
12	"The results of the study suggest sufficient public attention may be necessary for redress of reported privacy concerns," Khanna wrote.
13	Facebook Messenger has more than 700 million users.
14	The student, who could not be reached Thursday, told Boston.com that the data was from his own messages.
15	He said he thought he was helping the public by showing users how their data was being used.
16	"I didn't write the program to be malicious," he said.
17	Khanna ends the study by asking if the public can "reasonably expect Facebook or others with an interest in collecting and sharing personal data, to be responsible guardians of privacy."