Facebook developers can seek user cell numbers

Facebook has made it possible for app developers to get access to users' mobile numbers and addresses, if they obtain permission.

"Because this is sensitive information, we have created the new user address and user mobile phone permissions," wrote Jeff Bowen of the company's developer support team on the Facebook Developers blog on Friday. "These permissions must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs."

The blog noted that developers can only access the users' own details, and not those of their friends.

Facebook has come under fire in the past for providing too much information to the developers who create games, quizzes and other applications on the social networking platform.

In June, following an investigation by the privacy commissioner of Canada, Facebook made it mandatory for application developers to:

• Inform users what kind of personal information they require in order to run an application.
• Ask for consent to use the data.

Otherwise, by default, applications can only access public parts of a user's profile.

In October, the Wall Street Journal revealed that at least 10 of the most popular Facebook applications were sending the ID numbers of users to at least 25 advertising, marketing and internet tracking firms.

San Francisco developer Zynga, which produces popular Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars, was involved in one of the largest breaches.

Anne-Marie Hayden, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, said the office was not able to comment Monday, but is "definitely monitoring the situation" and expects to contact Facebook with questions.