New York, March 2 (IANS): Do you know that certain people can access Facebook accounts without the need for passwords? Some Facebook employees have direct access to your account.

But Facebook has explained that this is part of a tiered and strictly-managed customer support set-up, with employees abusing this trust getting fired, VentureBeat reported.

"Access is tiered and limited by job function, and designated employees may only access the amount of information that's necessary to carry out their job responsibilities, such as responding to bug reports or account support inquiries.

"Two separate systems are in place to detect suspicious patterns of behaviour, and these systems produce reports once per week, which are reviewed by two independent security teams," VentureBeat quoted a Facebook spokesperson as saying.

"We have a zero tolerance approach to abuse, and improper behaviour results in termination," the spokesperson added. The VentureBeat report said Facebook's explanation stemmed from the experience of Paavo Siljamaki, director at the record label Anjunabeats.

Siljamaki narrated about a visit to Facebook offices in L.A., with nice people there giving advice on how to use Facebook better. He said he was asked if it was okay for them to look at his profile, and he agreed. He then said a Facebook engineer logged in directly without entering the password.

"Just made me wonder how many of Facebook's staff have this kind of 'master' access to anyone's account? What are the rules on who and when they can access our private content and how would we know if someone did," he wondered.