Dropbox does not admit that some researchers obtained access to non-anonymous data its users services.
Let's see how everything started:
A study that was published on Friday of Northwestern University researchers reportedly drew information from a Dropbox information manager. The study dealt with how collaborative platforms are used by different groups of people.
The research states at one point that Dropbox "gave [researchers] access to dossier data" for two years from about 400.000 users at 1.000 universities. According to the publication, the data were "collected and anonymized" by the researchers.
The researchers said the data included "the total number of folders, the structure of each folder and access to shared folders". But according to investigators, they and Dropbox employees "could not see personal information."
However, the researchers claimed that they saw "every Dropbox file associated with a particular researcher, those with whom the file was shared, how often they had access to the file, whoever was connected to it, the length of their stay in each project." , and the way users managed their time on the various projects. ”
The above reports led to a lot of protests through him Twitter by well-known academics.
On the other hand, Dropbox denied all of the above with a statement posted electronically to ZDNet:
"The article contained real errors that we are trying to correct," said Dropbox spokeswoman Elisa Pandolfi.
"To be clear, before giving Dropbox user data to researchers, Dropbox permanently anonymized it, making any identifiable user information unreadable, such as emails and shared folder IDs."
"This process prevented [the researchers] from seeing any of the personal information, but allowed them to analyze the data anonymously," the statement said.
On the other hand, it is not known whether those whose data were used were asked for their express permission. Dropbox has not yet responded. It's also unclear what role or access the company employee had to the data, and why Dropbox didn't audit the data. Results before they are published.
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