An investigation by the online news site TechCrunch said the effort, which had been known as the Onavo Protect and later rebaptized as Facebook Research, was used to gather data on usage habits.

The news could be a further embarrassment for Facebook, which has been under heightened scrutiny over failing to crack down on manipulation of its platform and for sharing private data with its business partners.

Facebook said it shut down the application on Apple’s iOS on Wednesday after the TechCrunch article was published. It remained unclear if it remained active for Android users.

The report said the initial Onavo app was shuttered for violating Apple’s privacy policy and that the newer version may also contravene Apple’s terms.

The program paid users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 a month for “root” access to their devices to track their location, app usage, spending habits and other activity.

In a statement to AFP, Facebook said there was “nothing secret” about its efforts, and that Onavo and Facebook Research were separate programs.

“It wasn’t ‘spying’ as all of the people who signed up to participate went through a clear on-boarding process asking for their permission and were paid to participate,” the Facebook statement said.

“Finally, less than five percent of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental consent forms.”

The project may have allowed Facebook to scoop up more data about younger users as it fends off a challenge from rival services like Snapchat, which has become more popular than Facebook among US teens.

Datuk Abd Rahman Endut, Sultan Abdullah’s Protocol and Special officer, also said the new King did not get angry easily and did not like the apple-polishing and inciting attitudes.

”Tuanku prefers to keep quiet. If there is something which he wishes to know more about, he will summon the individual concerned to his office to safeguard the latter’s image, according to Bernama.

“Similarly, if Sultan Abdullah has a problem, Tuanku likes to stay in his room by himself and when he emerges, he will be back to normal … he likes to keep it to himself,” he said,

Revealing another side, Abd Rahman said Sultan Abdullah was also a cool person and liked to tease those close to him, including veteran palace staff, thus endearing him to them.

“He still teases an old man like me,” said Abd Rahman who has served Sultan Abdullah for 45 years.

Recalling the early moments of serving Istana Pahang, Ab Rahman said that initially he only applied to serve temporarily because at that time he was waiting for a call-up from the Royal Malaysian Air Force.

However, when the call-up for military training was received in 1974 and the warrant ticket for the train was already in his hand, Sultan Abdullah’s father Sultan Ahmad Shah summoned him and ordered him to accompany his sons to school in London, England.

”It was my luck too to experience stay in a white man’s country for years from 1975. At that time, Sultan Abdullah and Tengku Abdul Rahman (the Tengku Muda of Pahang) were at boarding school, so my duty was to pick up and send them both on weekends.

”The duty that I often performed was to cook for Sultan Abdullah and Tengku Abdul Rahman, but my cooking skill as a bachelor was rather wanting at that time. I often cooked fried rice or fried chicken, or if we wanted to eat a notch better, I would buy tandoori or burger because they were both not fussy,” he said.

Abd Rahman said to fill their free time, the three of them always had jam sessions and Sultan Abdullah would play the drums, Tengku Abdul Rahman, bass guitar, while he would play the keyboard, piano or guitar.

After he got married in 1979, he said his wife Datin Rozaidah Mokhtar, 62, took over his cooking duties and among the choice menus were nasi dagang other than original Pahang cuisines such as ikan patin masak tempoyak, opor daging and ayam golek.

“Sultan Abdullah relishes his wife (Tengku Ampuan Pahang) Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah’s cooking. He will eat whatever she cooks. His downside is that he is allergic to vinegar,” he said.

In addition, he said Sultan Abdullah, who was an active sportsman, also instilled the same interest in his children, especially in polo as Sultan Abdullah himself had headed the Pahang Royal Polo team to international competitions.

”Although, he is no longer active in polo, he will attend competitions involving his sons and sometimes turn up to see them training. He is a keen horseman, although he can no longer often carry out the activity currently. His three beloved horses Pintada, Cumbia and Mimosa are of Argentinian stock,” he added.

Sultan Abdullah was chosen as the new Yang di-Pertuan Agong for a five-year period effective tomorrow.

Boonchai Bach, a Vietnamese national with Thai citizenship, was arrested in January last year in connection with the smuggling of 14 horns from Africa.

His arrest came after police caught an airport official attempting to remove the horns from the quarantine section of a Bangkok airport.

The police sting led investigators to a major syndicate allegedly financed by Boonchai.

But the case was dismissed by a judge on Tuesday due to a lack of evidence, according to an official at Samut Prakan provincial court, where the trial took place.

The case against Boonchai unravelled after a key witness changed his testimony linking Boonchai to the crime, according to the founder of anti-trafficking group Freeland, Steve Galster.

“In the end the case was low-profile and treated like a parking ticket,” Galster said, adding that the case “fell apart” when the prosecution’s only major witness “flipped” on the stand.

Freeland representatives, including Galster, assisted with the investigation and testified at Tuesday’s trial.

They allege there is “adequate incriminating information” to show the Bach family is part of the sprawling Southeast Asian crime syndicate dubbed “Hydra”.

The syndicate smuggles elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts to Chinese and Vietnamese dealers.

For years, traffickers have operated out of Nakhon Phanom province bordering Laos.

It is a pivot point in Asia’s wildlife trafficking chain in which smuggled goods transit through Thailand into Laos and on to Vietnam and China.

Both countries are among the world’s biggest markets for parts from endangered or protected species, including tigers, elephants, rhinos and pangolins.

People like 45-year-old G. Chew said on Monday that the leak has risked both his personal and professional reputation.

“My company is of course aware that I have HIV, and I am fairly open about it to well-meaning friends who ask me about my illness out of genuine concern,” said Chew, an administrative officer who has been contacted by the Ministry of Health (MOH) that he was affected by the data leak.

“However, I definitely fear that all this personal information might be publicly available to people at my workplace and beyond to scrutinise. Also, it’s the Internet – once it’s up there, it’s inerasable.

“There is still a great stigma against people who have HIV. Information that I have HIV is definitely not something I want online. It’s not like it’s an award.”

Meanwhile, when Jay (not his real name), who is in his 20s, heard news of the leak, his first thought was of his 60-year-old mother and the harassment and judgment she could face from family and friends.

“I have not told my mother about it, and I don’t intend to. I have accepted that AIDS is what I have to live with forever, but I am afraid that if this information is made public, that my family and close friends will be ostracised and laughed at,” Jay said, adding that only one close friend had known about his illness.

MOH revealed that some 1,900 names in the leaked data were of people who had already died.

C. Koh, 31, said she suspects her late brother, who was diagnosed in 2008 and died of HIV-related medical complications in 2016, might be on the list.

“This is opening old wounds for us, and the idea that my late brother’s personal data is, even now, not secure, is very disturbing. We want to know why people like him are being targeted.”

In a statement on Monday, advocacy group Action for Aids said it is deeply troubled by the incident which it said could damage the lives of persons living with HIV and their loved ones.

The blast tore through the building as the victims were sleeping in the predawn darkness on the insurgency-plagued island of Mindanao, which is home to the Philippines’ Muslim minority.

Blood-streaked prayer mats and shattered glass could be seen on the floor inside the mosque where heavily armed security forces were standing guard, footage from the scene showed.

The blast came as the Catholic-majority nation was on high alert after a cathedral bombing claimed 21 lives at Sunday mass in an assault claimed by the Islamic State.

    Two people were killed and four others wounded in the mosque attack in Zamboanga City, authorities said, adding they had no indication so far it was retaliation for the cathedral bombing.

“We’re still looking at it, but we have not found any connection,” Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters. “In the past when churches were bombed… there were no revenge attacks.”

Authorities have not publicly identified any suspects and no one has claimed responsibility for the mosque attack.

– ‘Pray for peace’ –

Security forces are also hunting for the bombers behind the cathedral assault on the overwhelmingly Muslim island of Jolo, which security forces initially said was not a suicide bombing.

However, on Tuesday President Rodrigo Duterte contradicted them saying one of the bombers had blown himself up outside the cathedral.

On Wednesday Lorenzana appeared to walk back the president’s comments, saying: “The final conclusion is not there yet. It’s still being investigated.”

The probe was zeroing in a group tied to the notorious Islamist kidnap-for-ransom group Abu Sayyaf, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Police said they tried to arrest one of the suspects on Tuesday, but he got away and an armed man was shot dead by officers in the process.

The attacks have cast a shadow over hopes that voters’ decisive push to give Muslims in the south more control over their own affairs would help quell long-running separatist violence.

Rebels and the government in Manila have expressed hope the new so-called Bangsamoro area will finally draw the investment needed to pull the region out of the brutal poverty that makes it a hotspot for recruiting radicals.

However, hardline factions aligned with IS were not part of the decades-long peace process with the nation’s largest separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, that culminated January 21 with the resounding approval of a new Muslim led-region in the south.

Jolo, which is home to hardline Islamist factions, is the only area in the southern Philippines that voted against the Bangsamoro.

The grenade attack on Wednesday drew immediate condemnation from authorities.

“There is no redeeming such blasphemous murder. It is the highest form of cowardice and obscenity to attack people who at prayer,” said regional leader Mujiv Hataman.

“We call on people of all faiths… to come together to pray for peace.”

The program is entitled Lambe Hoaks, which takes the Javanese word for lips and means “Hoax Lips”. The first video is already available on the ministry’s YouTube channel, garnering more than 2,700 views as of Friday evening.

The peppy host, Miss Lambe Hoaks, is seen wearing a fuchsia faux-feather boa and a mask as she sets out to tackle various hoaxes that have been circulating on social media.

“Miss Lambe Hoaks wants to share information because there’s more and more hoax information that cannot be accounted for,” she flamboyantly says in her introduction to the video before proceeding to debunk 10 hoaxes.

Ferinandus Setu, the acting head of the ministry’s public relations bureau, said that the program is to target a wide range of false information, beyond just those that concern the government.

“A complete range of hoaxes, so not just political hoaxes, not just hoaxes that attack the government, but all hoaxes that can be found on social media,” Ferdinandus said, as quoted by Kompas.com.

He added that the program would target hoaxes that are receiving the most attention online.

“Those receiving the highest rate of response, such as those on trending topics,” Ferdinandus said, referring to the categorization of topics on Twitter that are being most talked about.

Read also: Hoax busters: How millennials can tackle fake news, hate speech

As Indonesia approaches a presidential election, which is set to take place on April 17, hoaxes are not uncommon on social media. The timing of Lambe Hoaks‘ launch has led to speculation that the program was produced to coincide with the campaign period.

Ferdinandus emphasized that Lambe Hoaks is in line with the government’s steadfast policy of fighting against false information, denying that it was created as a campaign tool, calling such allegations “not true”.

Launched on Jan. 24, Lambe Hoaks is a weekly show that is to be uploaded every Thursday on the ministry’s YouTube channel.

In each episode, Miss Lambe is to present the top 10 hoaxes culled from the findings of the Content Complaints Team at the ministry’s Information Applications Directorate General.

In a bid to innovate and avoid the stuffy and bureaucratic appearance often associated with the government, the show takes an upbeat and energetic tone to appeal to millennials.

Hakeem Alaraibi, who has been detained in Thailand for nearly two months now, was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Bahrain for his alleged role in helping protestors burn down a police station during demonstrations in 2012. He denied any wrongdoing and fled the country while on bail in 2013 and has since been granted asylum in Australia.

His case has caught the international spotlight, after Thai authorities arrested him in response to Bahrain’s request.

Even the secretary-general of world football’s governing body, Fifa, reportedly sent a letter to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha seeking an opportunity to discuss Alaraibi’s case with him.

“I understand the concerns of all sides. We are in the process of exploring solutions,” Prayut said.

Thai authorities are bound to comply with laws and will maintain good relationship with both Fifa and Bahrain, Prayut said.

Even as Bahrain insisted on the extradition of Alaraibi, the former captain of Australia’s national side, Craig Foster, stepped up a campaign to help him.

The campaign has handed in a petition bearing 50,000 signatures to Fifa in Zurich, which has reportedly taken action.

Alaraibi, 25, who played for Bahrain’s national youth team, now plays semi-professionally in Melbourne and Foster told a press conference in Zurich his release had become “an absolute emergency”.

“Back in Australia, the entire country is coming out very strongly in support of Hakeem,” he said. “Australia wants him back.”

He said he had met and won the support of Fifa’s secretary-general, Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura, who pledged to take the campaign to the highest level in Thailand and Bahrain, including “the football associations, the governments and of course the royal family of Bahrain”.

Alaraibi was detained entering Thailand for a vacation in November last year on an Interpol warrant that has since been withdrawn.

“He had all the rights and opportunities to defend himself in the criminal case, in which some of the suspects with him were acquitted by the court,” Bahrain’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said in the government statement.

He added that Alaraibi had the right to appeal the verdict if he is returned to Bahrain.

The footballer denies the charges against him, insisting he was playing in a match at the time of the incident for which he was found guilty.

The Australian government, human rights groups, Fifa and the International Olympic Committee have all called for Alaraibi’s release.

A tiny Gulf archipelago, allied with the US and located between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, the kingdom of Bahrain has been hit by waves of unrest since 2011, when security forces crushed Shi’ite-led protests demanding an elected prime minister.

The postal service provider’s actions follow a Facebook post by user Alyce Kathlyn on Monday night, which shared eight images of the discarded letters in the bin.

Going by the photos, there were letters from the Land Transport Authority, the National University of Singapore, and for the Community Health Assist Scheme, among others.

In its statement on Tuesday afternoon, SingPost said that it has referred the case to the police following findings from internal investigations.

The police confirmed that a report has been lodged and a 29-year-old man was arrested.

The Straits Times understands that he was arrested for allegedly committing theft as a servant.

SingPost on Tuesday apologised to residents of the affected blocks. The residents are from blocks 612 to 619 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, blocks 175 to 178 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, blocks 179 to 182 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 and block 611 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5.

SingPost said that it is unable to comment further as the police is investigating the case. The postal service provider also thanked Ms Kathlyn for highlighting this case.

Ms Kathlyn had claimed in her Facebook post that the postman had discarded the letters and parcels in the bin.

“This is not the first time we’ve found this in Ang Mo Kio,” she wrote in the Facebook post, which has at least 145 comments and 3,800 shares.

On Tuesday, SingPost said on its Facebook page that it was aware of the images of the discarded letters that have been circulating online.

A SingPost team was dispatched to comb the area overnight, it said.

While the bin was located, the team was unable to find the discarded letters, despite expanding its search to other bins in the vicinity, said SingPost.

The team also opened letter boxes to check if the letters were delivered to the affected recipients. SingPost also interviewed the postman on duty.

“Our main priority currently is to locate the letters and have them delivered to intended recipients,” the postal service provider said.

Some social media users, including Ms Kathlyn, left comments on SingPost’s Facebook page, demanding a thorough investigation and an explanation.

Facebook user Tiong Low also claimed that his tenant, who lives at Block 177 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4, has not received mail for the past two months.

“I told her to continue monitoring and to update me. Mail hardly (goes) missing in Singapore… I demand an investigation and answer from your office,” the user wrote.

In its latest statement on Tuesday, SingPost said that residents of the affected blocks may call its hotline on 6845-6222 between 9am and 9pm on weekdays if they require assistance or if they are aware of any other incidents of discarded mail.

“SingPost does not tolerate any mishandling or misappropriation of mail,” it said.  “Any postman found to have committed such offences will be disciplined, and, where applicable, dealt with by the full extent of the law.”

Earlier this month, the postal service provider drew ire from customers for its apparent poor delivery service during the year-end peak season.

Many of them took to social media to complain about letters and packages that were not delivered or delayed.

SingPost later apologised for its “service failures” and added that it will be reviewing and improving its operational procedures.

In response to queries, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said that they take a serious view of any incident that impacts the reliability, integrity and security of Singapore’s public postal services.

“Under the Postal Services Act, it is an offence for any officer, employee or agent of a postal licensee to destroy or throw away any postal article or anything contained therein,” IMDA said.

“IMDA will take appropriate action against anyone found guilty of contravening the Postal Services Act.”

The authority also expressed “grave concerns” over the latest incident and “the spate of recent service lapses by SingPost”.

The postal service provider must comply with its public postal licence requirements and quality of service standards, IMDA added.

“SingPost must investigate all complaints and feedback raised, and take urgent steps to improve its service standards and restore public confidence in its postal services.”

The Chinese-Christian politician, who battled corruption and improved health care when he governed the Indonesian capital between 2014 and 2017, is being criticised on social media by Muslims who are accusing him of making the Muslim woman he plans to marry commit apostasy.

Other Muslims, however, have defended Basuki, arguing that no one should meddle with his personal life and that people have the right to follow any religion.

Basuki, 52, popularly known as Ahok, has said he plans to remarry. The bride-to-be, who comes from a Javanese Muslim family, is Puput Nastiti Devi, 21, who used to be a policewoman and aide of Basuki’s former wife.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, does not recognise the marriage if the man and woman are from different religions. In many cases, one converts to the other’s religion, or they travel to another country to get married.

The brouhaha surrounding Basuki’s planned marriage started not long after a video showing Puput and himself singing at a service led by a Christian pastor went viral. The thankgsgiving service was held last Thursday, when Basuki was freed from prison, and attended by family and close friends.

News portal Kumparan.com reported that the couple’s pre-marriage documentation identified Puput as a Christian. Another site vivanews.com reported that the couple would tie the knot in a Christian wedding.

Basuki divorced his former wife Veronica Tan last year, after more than 20 years of marriage.

The divorce came a year after a Jakarta court sentenced him in May 2017 to two years’ jail, after finding him guilty of insulting Islam – a verdict widely seen as being caused by political pressure from conservative Muslim groups.

Neither Basuki nor Puput has spoken about the alleged conversion.

Commenting on reports that Mr Basuki is marrying a Muslim woman, Islam-based United Development Party politician Andi Soedirman said Muslims would have even less sympathy for Mr Basuki if he went ahead with the plan to marry her. He added that Puput has the legal right to convert.

The issue has divided opinion on social media. Twitter user David Ridwan, in a post, said: “Ahok is initiating very dangerous and controversial debates again. This looks like Ahok is taking revenge, by way of making a Muslim woman commit apostasy.”

Another Twitter user, Jeffery Coumbour, said: “Ahok, I am very disappointed… You should marry a woman of your own religion.”

Others defended Basuki. Indonesian artist Sudjiwo Tedjo, who has a large Twitter following, said: “I am not a fan of Ahok but I am ok with a would-be bride of Ahok or anybody converting before marriage.”