Here's all the data Facebook and Google have on you—and it's a lot
More and more news is coming out following the massive Facebook “data leak,” and as users delete their accounts in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people are discovering that Facebook has more info than originally thought.
However, it's not just Facebook.
Read more: People are boycotting Facebook because of that sketchy “data breach”
Twitter user Dylan Curran, a technical consultant and web developer, shared some seriously sketchy findings about just how much information Facebook and Google store—without you even realizing it.
He uploaded all the info into an extensive Twitter thread that have us adjusting our settings… Like right now.
See his extensive list of discoveries below:
Want to freak yourself out? I'm gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
1. https://t.co/1z255Zt1zf Google stores your location (if you have it turned on) every time you turn on your phone, and you can see a timeline from the first day you started using Google on your phone
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
2. This is every place I have been in the last twelve months in Ireland, going in so far as the time of day I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one pic.twitter.com/I1kB1vwntT
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
3. https://t.co/qFCgY6QLN5 Google stores search history across all your devices on a separate database, so even if you delete your search history and phone history, Google STILL stores everything until you go in and delete everything, and you have to do this on all devices
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
4. https://t.co/QRfgwkNj80 Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lbs in one day?) and income
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
5. Google stores information on every app and extension you use, how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with (who do you talk to on facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep at) https://t.co/RJeRlXhtdq
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
6. https://t.co/5B6qxUvrJz Google stores ALL of your YouTube history, so they know whether you're going to be a parent soon, if you're a conservative, if you're a progressive, if you're Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, if you're anorexic…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
7. Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you, I've requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB BIG, which is roughly 3 MILLION Word documents https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
8. https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk This link includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you've taken on your phone, the businesses you've bought from, the products you've bought through Google…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
9. Your calendar, your Google hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google books you've purchased, the Google groups you're in, the websites you've created, the phones you've owned, the pages you've shared, how many steps you walk in a day…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
10. Facebook offers a similar option to download all your information, mine was roughly 600mb, which is roughly 400,000 Word documents
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
11. This includes every message you've ever sent or been sent, every file you've ever sent or been sent, all the contacts in your phone, and all the audio messages you've ever sent or been sent pic.twitter.com/H8ng7bcyod
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
12. Facebook also stores what it think you might be interested in based off the things you've liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic 'Girl') pic.twitter.com/fqKiNlfATO
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
13. Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you've ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this, it's just a joke at this stage) pic.twitter.com/4F5sExbynf
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
14. They also store every time you log into Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device pic.twitter.com/iWXSPm5Peh
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
15. And they store all the applications you've ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I'm interested in politics and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got a HTC phone in November… pic.twitter.com/bkXruVZxLP
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
16. Side-note, if you have Windows 10 installed, this is a picture of JUST the privacy options with 16 different sub-menus, which have all of the options enabled by default when you install Windows 10 pic.twitter.com/oHyfYndTnJ
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
17. This includes tracking where you are, what applications you have installed, when you use them, what you use them for, access to your webcam and microphone at any time, your contacts, your e-mails, your calendar, your call history, the messages you send and receive…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
18. The files you download, the games you play, your photos and videos, your music, your search history, your browsing history, even what RADIO stations you listen to
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
19. This is one of the craziest things about the modern age, we would never let the government or a corporation put cameras/microphones in our homes or location trackers on us, but we just went ahead and did it ourselves because fuck it I want to watch cute dog videos
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
20. I got the Google Takeout document with all my information, and this is a breakdown of all the different ways they get your information pic.twitter.com/mPAbyh1I9k
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
21. Here's the search history document, which has 90,000 different entries, even showing the images I downloaded and the websites I accessed (I showed ThePirateBay section to show much damage this information can do) pic.twitter.com/rZJhJjSe2t
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
22. Here's my Google Calendar broken down, showing all the events I've ever added, whether I actually attended them, and what time I attended them at (this part is what I went for an interview for a Marketing job, and what time I arrived at) pic.twitter.com/mpB7NpLVzT
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
23. This is my Google Drive, which includes files I EXPLICITLY deleted including my resume, my monthly budget, and all the code, files, and websites I've ever made, and even my PGP private key, which I deleted, which I use to encrypt e-mails pic.twitter.com/UpfUNTD6yR
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
24. This is my Google Fit, which shows all of the steps I've ever taken, any time I walked anywhere, and all the times I've recorded any meditation/yoga/workouts I've done (I deleted this information and revoked Google Fit's permissions) pic.twitter.com/mAYmk8zxwR
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
25. This is all the photos ever taken with my phone, broken down by year, and includes metadata of when and where I took the photos pic.twitter.com/hBuClVijZv
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
26. Every e-mail I've ever sent, that's been sent to me, including the ones I deleted or were categorised as spam pic.twitter.com/mbUOlu6KXN
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
27. And now my Google Activity, this has thousands of files, so I'll just do a short summary of what they have pic.twitter.com/jucdjpQAVY
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
28. Firstly every Google Ad I've ever viewed or clicked on, every app I've ever launched or used and when I did it, every website I've ever visited and what time I did it at, and every app I've ever installed or searched for pic.twitter.com/DcMdnbzuC6
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
29. Every image I've ever searched for and saved, every location I've ever searched for or clicked on, every news article I've ever searched for or read, and EVERY SINGLE google search I've made since 2009 pic.twitter.com/xPOK8h3qej
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
30. And then finally, every YouTube video I've ever searched for or viewed, since 2008 pic.twitter.com/0F1Lcwp2FS
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
31. I'm probably on an FBI watch-list now, so if I die in the next few months IT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT, IT WAS A SET-UP
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
Dang. That's a lot of info. And we're seriously freaked.
“We would never let the government or a corporation put cameras/microphones in our homes or location trackers on us,” Curran told The Guardian. “But we just went ahead and did it ourselves because—to hell with it!—I want to watch cute dog videos.”
Facebook users have been calling for a Facebook boycott with the hashtag #DeleteFacebook, following the sketchy reveal that 50 million users' personal data had been compromised and ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm hired by Donald Trump hired during the 2016 election.
Cambridge Analytica collected data to target potential voters and, as reported by The New York Times, specifically placed political ads and stories at social media denizens based on the harvested information. Yep, this Facebook “breach” keeps looking more and more nasty.
As The Guardian previously reported, Facebook makes it hard for people to actually delete their accounts in the first place, and as users are sharing, they realize how much knowledge Facebook has once they delete their accounts—including those calls and messages, as well as contacts in their address books, their calendars and more.
Oh wow my deleted Facebook Zip file contains info on every single phone cellphone call and text I made for about a year- cool totally not creepy.
— Mat Johnson (@mat_johnson) March 23, 2018
I had a similar issue with mine on Android. Don't have FB installed but I do use Messenger and Instagram. Interestingly they only tracked when I rang my parents and girlfriend. Have never used Messenger in regards to my parents. Weird.
— Ben Wigham (@bmdwigham) March 24, 2018
I’ve just looked at the data files I requested from Facebook and they had every single phone number in my contacts. They had every single social event I went to, a list of all my friends (and their birthdays) and a list of every text I’ve sent.
— Emma Kennedy (@EmmaKennedy) March 25, 2018
Yup. Not even joking. They have every single one of my phone numbers. Names next to them. People I am not friends with on Facebook. Nothing to do with Facebook. I’ve deleted my account.
— Emma Kennedy (@EmmaKennedy) March 25, 2018
Facebook responded, saying: “The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy to find the people you want to connect with. So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a messaging or social app, it’s a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts.”
It's time to go back and check your Third-Party App sharing—and see exactly what information you've shared with the social networking platform.
So, is it time to #DeleteFacebook?