Most people know that Facebook has information about them. We submit things like our names, our hometowns, our ages, our birthdays and our interests, and that we assume that Facebook is collecting that data. But Facebook has way more data on the general public than they realize. Facebook can take all the information that you simply submit and mix it with data from other users and out of doors information to construct a profile of you. Facebook uses nearly 100 different data points to classify your interests and activities. this may include basic stuff like your age and gender, but also more complicated information like whether you own a motorbike otherwise you recently went on vacation or whether you’re a gadget geek. Researchers have found that by using signals like your likes and interactions, Facebook could tell if you were in an exceedingly relationship or browsing a breakup. Facebook doesn’t just know who you’re. It also knows where you’re. If you’ve got location tracking turned on, Facebook collects an unlimited amount of location data about where you’re going, where you came from, where you reside, where you’re employed, what restaurants and businesses you tend to travel to. and that they use this information to focus on ads at you. and site data could reveal people who sleep in your house, whether or not you’re not connected to them on Facebook.
Now obviously, Facebook knows what its users buy after they click on ads from Facebook. But what the majority don’t realize is that they need ways of tracking your offline purchases also. for several years, Facebook has had partnerships with data brokers that collected information about people’s purchases. So for instance, if you purchase a burrito along with your mastercard, Facebook could understand that transaction, match it with a mastercard that you’ve added to Facebook or Facebook Messenger, and begin showing you ads for indigestion medicine. one among the foremost controversial parts of Facebook data collection may be a feature called “People you will Know.” And this is often where Facebook uses many alternative signals of what it knows about you to work out who else you may be connected to. And this can be not always things that you just share with Facebook. it’d be contacts in your phone. it would be folks that are within the same room as you.
Facebook was using location data to recommend friends. So it would are recommending folks that share a doctor with you or add the identical building. Facebook may be wont to compile data about your political activity like protests or marches you head to. In one case in 2016, the A.C.L.U. found that 500 police organizations had signed up for a service called Geofeedia, which scraped data from social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to assist officers explore for users who can be in a very specific location or attending a particular protest. for instance, Geofeedia claimed it helped the Baltimore department of local government monitor and answer the protests after the death of Freddie Gray. Facebook doesn’t just know who you’re, where you’re and what you get. It can also be accustomed determine what varieties of belongings you might neutralize the long run. To predict life outcomes, like whether you’ll be enthusiastic about substances, whether you may switch political parties, whether you’re physically healthy or physically unhealthy. These are all a part of the knowledge that advertisers like to know because it helps them better target users.