Social-networking site Facebook has plans to allow third-party developers and external sites to access users’ phone numbers and home addresses.

The controversial personal information-sharing feature was first introduced in January this year, but the company terminated the feature after US representatives Edward Markey and Joe Barton and other privacy advocates severely criticized the company over the privacy concern.

The company stressed that it would indeed allow third-party apps to request access to users’ phones numbers and home addresses.

Speaking on the topic, Marne Levine from Facebook said, "We expect that, once the feature is re-enabled, Facebook will again permit users to authorize applications to obtain their contact information.”

Facebook says that the feature allows third-parties to access Facebook users’ personal information only if users click on the “Allow” button. But, critics are arguing that the pop-up permissions window is insufficient.

Facebook also claims that they are evaluating stronger methods to further improve user control. In addition, the company is planning to restrict children from allowing third-parties to access their phone numbers and home addresses.