Facebook has suspended a US-based analytics firm while it investigates concerns about the collection and sharing of user data. Crimson Hexagon, based in Boston, describes itself as offering consumer insights and has contracts with government agencies around the world. Facebook said it was looking into whether some of these deals were in violation of its policies on surveillance. The network said it had not found any evidence so far that data had been improperly obtained. According to the Wall Street Journal, Crimson Hexagon has contracts to analyze public Facebook data for clients including a Russian nonprofit with ties to the Kremlin and multiple US government agencies.

According to Facebook, they prohibited user data being used for government surveillance following pressure from civil liberties groups concerned about the targeting of dissidents and protesters. They don't allow developers to build surveillance tools using information from Facebook or Instagram. The company has taken these allegations seriously, and have suspended these apps while investigating Crimson Hexagon works with a data set that includes, according to its own website, more than one trillion social media posts taken from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others. It boasts of being able to analyze more than 160m photographs posted online every day. Along with government work, Crimson Hexagon has had deals with commercial companies including Adidas, Samsung, and the BBC.

Gathering and sharing data insights  with businesses is not against Facebook’s policies."People can share their information with developers on Facebook and Instagram - just as they can when they download an app on their phone,” said Ime Archibong, Facebook’s head of partnerships. He said developers were allowed to use public or aggregated information to produce anonymized insights for business purpose Where Crimson Hexagon would fall foul of Facebook’s rules is if the data was used to create tools for surveillance, though Facebook has never clarified how its policy works in practice.