Sign up for Facebook

Facebook is the world's largest social network. Before you sign up, make sure you know what information they store about you and how it can be used.

Facebook will attempt to

• Track your location Source Source Source
• Track all your phone calls and texts (who you talk to and when) Source
• Track much of what you do on the internet Source
• Log most of what you do on Facebook Source

With this data, Facebook may be able to

• Guess where you live, work and spend your time

  Facebook will collect location information related to you. When putting this data together, it can create a detailed map of where you spend your days. Not every single moment, but in general. Facebook encourages you to share your location in different ways:

  • Facebook explicitly asks you to share where you live and work.
  • They encourage you to share your current location in various parts of the app.
  • They encourage you to “like” and review local businesses.
  • If a Facebook friend tags you in a post with location information, your profile will be attached to that location.
  • Facebook stores your IP address whenever you use the service. This gives them a good idea of where you are. IP addresses by themselves do not give a precise location, but if another Facebook user posted a location-tagged post from the same IP address (i.e. same Wifi), Facebook can connect the dots and know your location more precisely.

  “How—And Why—Apple, Google, And Facebook Follow You Around In Real Life”

• Guess who your friends and family are

  • Facebook is built on the concept of “friends”. To interact with other people on the platform, you add them as friends. “How do I add a friend on Facebook?”
  • When you chat with someone, “like” someone's post or join the same group as someone, Facebook will infer that you are likely to be friends. ”Where do People You May Know suggestions come from?”
  • Facebook uses design tricks to make you upload your phone's contact list. Even if you decline, they use tricky wording to make you do it anyway. Tweet with example of this
  • Since Facebook tracks its users' location data, they has the ability to guess who your friends are based on the time you spend together at the same locations. “How does Facebook suggest potential friends? Not location data – not now”

• Guess who you live with and meet with in real life

  • Facebook users can add their relationship status and information about who their partner is.
  • Facebook encourages it's users to use the service to create invitations to parties and other events. When you accept an invitation, Facebook can assume that you will be spending time with the other attendees.
  • Your Facebook friends can “tag” you in posts when you're at restaurants, events etc. even if you do not share this information yourself.
  • Since couples are likely to connect to Facebook from the same IP address every, it can be used to predict who's dating who.
  • Similarly, since Facebook tracks each user's location, they can find out when two friends are at the same location.

  “How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met”

• Guess your political affiliations

  • Facebook encourages you to “react” to news stories and friends' updates. This gives them detailed information about your opinions on various topics.
  • Facebook can estimate where you live, what you're interested in and who you meet with. They can also infer your socioeconomic status (how much money you have compared to others). This is often enough to indicate how likely you are to vote in a certain way.

  “Liberal, Moderate or Conservative? See How Facebook Labels You”

• Guess your sexual orientation

  • You may visit a specific dating website that uses Facebook's tracking script. This lets Facebook know that you visited the website.
  • You may attend events aimed at people with a specific sexual orientation.
  • You may like or comment on content aimed at people with a specific sexual orientation.
  • You may interact with people with a specific sexual orientation on Facebook.

  “Facebook may guess millions of people’s sexuality to sell ads”
• Guess what times you work and sleep
  • Facebook logs your interactions with the service and with other sites on the web. They log when you do something and where you are at that point. Using this data, they can probably guess when you're sleeping (at night, when not using Facebook or surfing the web).
  • Looking at how your location changes every day, it would be fairly easy to guess when you are at home and at work.

  “You can use Facebook to track your friends' sleep”
• Understand exactly what you're interested in
  • Facebook tracks what you do and what content you interact with on the service. Whenever you “like” a post, comment on a link or share a news story, Facebook learns more about what you are interested in.
  • Facebook tracks what you do on many websites outside Facebook. This gives them even more information about your interests.
  • Facebook tracks whenever you click on a Facebook ad and can use this information to further pinpoint your interests.

  “How does Facebook decide which ads to show me and how can I control the ads I see?”
• Estimate what your financial situation is like

  What you do on Facebook says a lot about who you are, including what your financial situation may be like. In addition to the data mentioned on this page, things like where you live and what type of phone you use may help Facebook figure out what your financial situation is like.

  Facebook patent: “Socioeconomic group classification based on user features”

You should know that

• Facebook makes money by giving companies, organizations and foreign powers the ability to show you ads based on what Facebook knows about you. These ads may try to change your opinion or make you buy something.

  Facebook does not sell your data. Instead they sell “access” to you. Advertisers pay Facebook and in exchange, Facebook show the ads to the people who are most likely to be interested in them. Since Facebook knows so much about their users, they are good at showing the right ads to the right people. Source

  • This “targeted advertising” is good for advertisers, since it lets them show ads to a specific “audience” — people who are likely to be interested. “Choose your audience — Connect with the people who will love your business”
  • It's considered a problem for democracies since people don't see the same ads and therefore won't be able to have a discussion about how they are being targeted by states, political parties, organizations or companies. “Your Filter Bubble is Destroying Democracy”
  • It's considered a problem for democracies since foreign powers may use targeted ads to create division among different groups. These advertising tools have been used to influence the outcomes of elections. “Questions for Facebook About Russia’s Use of Its Network”

• Facebook uses design tricks to make you give up more personal information than you may have initially intended to. Source

• Facebook will run experiments on you to change your feelings or make you use Facebook more. Source

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