• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, March 13, 2017

In a partial victory for civil rights advocates, Facebook said today that it will prohibit developers from using information about users for "surveillance."

The move comes several months after the ACLU reported that Geofeedia was providing law enforcement with information about protesters obtained from their social media accounts, including their Instagram posts, tweets and comments posted to Facebook.

Geofeedia was able to accomplish this by using automated tools available to developers, including Instagram's API, which gives developers location data for posts, and Facebook's "Topic Feed API," which offered public posts that mention specific topics, according to the ACLU.

In one well-publicized example, Geofeedia helped police monitor protesters in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown was fatally shot by police. Geofeedia reportedly was able to give police information about users' locations by using automated tools to access their social media posts.

Geofeedia's access to Facebook was revoked last year, but the social networking service didn't explicitly prohibit developers from using its data to create monitoring mechanisms until today.

The ACLU and other advocates had urged Facebook to go further and not only prohibit developers from facilitating surveillance, but also outlining a plan to enforce the ban.

It's not clear from Facebook's move today whether the company has any plan to proactively keep tabs on developers' use of data, or whether it will wait to take action until outside groups like the ACLU uncover a violation.

It's also worth noting that Facebook's latest move won't do anything to prevent police from demanding data related to protest. Just last week, it emerged that law enforcement authorities in Whatcom County, Washington demanded that Facebook provide a host of data about the Bellingham #NoDAPL Coalition page -- which is dedicated to protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

The authorities are seeking information messages exchanged by group members, as well as data about anyone who interacted with the page between Feb. 4 and Feb. 15 -- a time frame that includes a Feb. 11 protest that stopped traffic. The ACLU is challenging that warrant in court.