Twitter shared user location with third parties

Twitter has mistakenly shared the location data of users of its iPhone and iPad app with third parties, the company announced on Monday on its website.

The error occurred with users who used more than one Twitter account on their iPhone or iPad and shared location data with one of these accounts, but not with other accounts.

In those cases, Twitter also collected the location data of an account or multiple accounts where the user had not given that permission. The user’s location was then also sold in the auction system for Twitter advertisers.

As a result, those advertisers inadvertently gained better insight into Twitter profiles, so that they could advertise more effectively. With the data, the location of a user could be accurately determined up to an area with a radius of 5 kilometers.

Twitter writes that the unintentionally shared location data has been deleted at the third party. The problem has since been solved by the American social medium. It is unclear how many users were affected by the error.