THE story on the Federal Agency for Compliant Exposure (FACE) and its privacy-gathering tools is an April Fool’s Joke, however it’s one based on a true story

If you swap every mention of the “federal agency,” “regulators,” and “authorities” for the word “Facebook,” you can read the real story.

The social network does track the movements, phone calls and text messages of its users.

The multibillion-dollar company has passed on private messages and personal information to third parties without users’ knowledge.

And businesses, researchers, and political parties have used the information to target ads at specific user groups, allegedly even affecting the outcome of the 2016 US election.

Amber Cruz-Gerkk may not really exist, but her anagram, Mark Zuckerberg, is real and could answer questions posed by US Congress next month.