The social media platform formerly known as Twitter can now harvest your biometric data and DNA.
A new update quietly added to the platform’s privacy policy says that X now has permission to harvest its users’ fingerprints, retinal scans, voice and face recognition and keystroke patterns.
The update would mean that anyone who uses fingerprint verification to log in to the app from their phone, posts selfies or videos to the platform or speaks their mind on X ‘spaces’ could see their unique biometric data catalogued by the company.
The new policy, which describes its interest in users’ biometrics as ‘for safety, security, and identification purposes,’ also added the platform’s intent to scrape up data on users’ job history, educational background and ‘job search activity.’
The move follows nearly a year of turmoil for the microblogging app, which has included Musk requesting that its users pay subscription fees for premium services and verification: part of his larger plan to recover from cratering advertising revenue.
For over a decade, Big Tech companies have stoked controversy and concerned privacy advocates with their persistent interest in collecting their customers’ biometric data.
China’s viral video sensation TikTok, for example, gave itself permission to collect users’ ‘faceprints and voiceprints’ with a privacy policy update in 2021.
And this summer, Facebook’s parent company Meta announced its intention to finally sunset its facial-recognition system, which had been automatically ID’ing users, as well as their friends and family, in photos for over a decade.
Meta’s VP of AI research, Jerome Pesenti, said the move was a response to the ‘many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society.’
While it remains unclear what Musk or X intends to do with users’ biometric data, Musk has been vocal in his desire to rid the site of inauthentic accounts and bots since he purchased the company last year.
In a move that might offer a clue toward Musk’s future plans to mine and profit off of user biometric data, the billionaire announced, via a post to X, that users will soon be able to make video and audio calls through X itself.
