Did you know that the holders of a Facebook account have the little mentioned ability to download a copy of the file stored about them, which is filled with detailed records of their activities while logged into Facebook?
It is less easy to obtain the info Facebook knows about people who don’t have an account, as they are tracked via third parties.
The Silicon Valley, California based company Facebook abuses data obtained from its enormous 1.4 billion mass of daily active users as the raw basis for algorithms that link advertising and other materials to the online profile of a person.
Facebook is capable of collecting data on every single element of a person’s digital identity, from your private Messenger chat history to photos and all files sent across its servers.
Social media plugins and cookies also are made use of by Facebook, as they collect data via third-party websites.
Every single time you share or like things on Facebook, or visit sites with Facebook trackers and ads, you are being tracked: whether you are signed into Facebook or not.
According to the Daily Mail:
“Nick Whigham, a reporter for the New Zealand Herald, decided to test out what Facebook knew about him and was surprised by the results.
In 2010, Facebook was the first big social media firm to give its users the option to download a file containing their personal history on the service.
Among the information gathered by the firm on Mr Wingham was a mobile recording of an old VHS video of his mother hugging him as he left for his first day of pre-school.
He also stumbled across scanned copies of tenancy agreements, bills for his home broadband service and screen shots of bank transfers, as well as more banal chat logs and other site history.”
Here is how to download your file.
1. To download your personal data file, click the top right section of your Facebook page and select “Settings”
2. Select ‘Download a copy of your Facebook data’ beneath your “General Account Settings”
3. Then, a file will be processed by Facebook with all your data from the day your account was created
4. Ensure that your email is functioning, because Facebook will send you a notification and email when it is ready
(Image credit: Oezratty)
