Official orders probe into Facebook access to data from other apps

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday ordered two state agencies to investigate a media report that Facebook Inc may be accessing far more personal information than previously known from smartphone users, including health and other sensitive data.

The directive to New York’s Department of State and Department of Financial Services (DFS) came after the Wall Street Journal said testing showed that Facebook collected personal information from other apps on users’ smartphones within seconds of them entering it.