Facebook has been quietly offering teenagers $20 a month to spy on their phones

Facebook has been paying teenagers £15 ($20) per month to give it complete access to their mobile phones, including their emails, their browsing habits and their private messages in other apps. An investigation by TechCrunch found that the social media giant enlisted users between 13 to 35 to install an app which continuously snooped on their behaviour in an apparent effort to gather information about its competitors.

The program, reportedly known as Project Atlas, appears to have been deliberately crafted to downplay Facebook's involvement and to circumvent Apple's app store, which banned a similar Facebook app last year for being too invasive.

A security expert who aided the investigation described the level of access granted by the app as "appalling", saying it was so extensive as to render getting the informed consent of under-aged users almost impossible...

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