Facebook employee stalked women using data he gathered from the social network

'We are aware of the situation and investigating'

Facebook fired an engineer over allegations he used his data access to stalk women online (Reuters)

Facebook has fired one of its engineers over allegations that the worker used his position at the company to access personal information for the purpose of stalking women online.

The stalking claims first surfaced after Jackie Stokes, founder of the cybersecurity firm Spyglass Security, tweeted that she had copies of conversations from the Tinder dating app.

"I've been made aware that a security engineer currently employed at Facebook is likely using privileged access to stalk women online," Ms Stokes tweeted on Sunday, 30 April.

By cross-referencing his online profiles, Ms Stokes said she was able to determine the engineer's identity.

Ms Stokes also shared a screenshot od one of the Tinder conversations between the alleged stalker and one of his victims.

"You're a security analyst?" the subject asked. "I think that's really cool."

The alleged stalker replied: "Haha more than that... but base off that... I also try to figure out who hackers are in real life... so professional stalker... so out of habit I have to say that you are hard to find lol."

Facebook said it is investigating the incident and announced on Wednesday that a security engineer had been fired.

“We are investigating this as a matter of urgency," Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer at Facebook, said in a statement.

"It’s important that people’s information is kept secure and private when they use Facebook. It’s why we have strict policy controls and technical restrictions so employees only access the data they need to do their jobs – for example to fix bugs, manage customer support issues or respond to valid legal requests. Employees who abuse these controls will be fired.”