WindowsPhone8StartScreen1_PageIf you’ve been noticing your Windows Phone is using up unexpectedly huge amounts of data, you’re in good company.

First reported by The Verge, Microsoft has confirmed that the Twitter functionality in Windows Phone’s People hub has been driving some phones to use several gigabytes of data while on Wi-Fi, and in some cases more than half a gigabyte of data on a cellular network, even when not in active use.

While that may not be a problem if you have plenty of breathing room in your data plan’s monthly limit, this bug could have a major impact on whether or not you’re charged an overage on a tighter data allowance.

Microsoft said that the problem stemmed from a change to Twitter’s backend, and not any particular software update. That means that Microsoft has a harder time addressing the problem, and even if you’re running an old version of the Windows Phone OS, there’s still a chance this bug might affect you. In order to lower the impact of the bug, Microsoft said that it was reducing the Twitter update frequency to once a day.

If you’re concerned about keeping your phone’s usage down, you might want to consider removing any Twitter accounts from the phone until the problem is resolved, which should stop any data use.

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