Facebook has faced continuous criticism over its data privacy practices and how it handles user information. Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s apologies and promises to do better, Facebook continues to demonstrate a lack of regard for user privacy.
What kind of data does Facebook collect?
Facebook collects an enormous amount of data about its users including:
- Basic profile information – name, email, phone number, gender, date of birth, location
- Posts and messages
- Photos and videos
- Likes, shares, comments
- Friends list and connections
- Groups and pages followed
- Device information
- Browsing history and activity on Facebook
- Location data
- Facial recognition data
- Contacts uploaded to Facebook
- Payment information if purchases made on Facebook
This gives Facebook an intimate profile of its users with details about identity, interests, habits, locations visited, social connections and more. The depth of data collected is staggering.
How does Facebook obtain so much personal data?
Facebook gathers user data through:
- Information provided directly by users when signing up and adding to their profiles.
- Tracking activity across Facebook products – What you do on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc.
- Following you around the web via Facebook pixels and social plugins. Many websites feature Facebook buttons that track your browsing.
- Location data from your mobile device.
- Data broker partnerships – Facebook buys supplementary data from data brokers.
- Acquiring data-rich companies like WhatsApp and Instagram.
Facebook’s pervasive data collection follows you wherever you go on the internet. It also extends beyond the digital world through offline partnerships that feed real world data back to Facebook.
What does Facebook do with all this data?
Facebook primarily uses your data to:
- Target ads based on your interests, habits, location etc. This is how Facebook made $86 billion in revenue in 2018.
- Improve ad targeting through machine learning algorithms that analyze patterns in the vast data.
- Train AI systems so Facebook can catalog the world’s faces and understand text and images.
- Build user profiles and models to feed recommendation engines for its products.
- Provide data to Facebook’s partners through APIs and business deals.
- Research purposes to invent new products and features.
In summary, Facebook leverages user data to enhance its advertising business, develop new products and features, and share data with partners.
How does Facebook share user data?
Facebook shares user data in the following ways:
- With advertisers – Advertisers can target users based on Facebook’s data and viewing histories, although advertisers do not directly access this data.
- With developers – Until 2014, Facebook allowed developers access to extensive user data.
- With business partners – Facebook shares data with other companies to integrate their products.
- With researchers – Facebook provides data to social scientists for experimental research.
- With law enforcement – Facebook will provide user data to law enforcement upon legal requests.
In the past, Facebook has been far too lenient in sharing its data. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed Facebook’s reckless data sharing with an app developer that harvested data on 87 million users.
5 ways Facebook violates user privacy
Based on its data practices, here are 5 ways Facebook violates user privacy:
- Tracking you across the internet – Through tools like Facebook Pixel and social widgets, Facebook follows you around the web tracking your browsing habits.
- Storing data forever – Facebook builds extensive profiles on users by storing their data indefinitely with no option to purge it.
- Facial recognition – Facebook’s face recognition technology identifies people in photos without consent, invading privacy.
- Targeted advertising – Facebook lets advertisers micro-target users based on private traits like health conditions.
- Data sharing – Facebook has shared private data with other companies like Apple, Amazon, and device manufacturers.
These practices show a blatant disregard for limits on data collection and informed consent from users.
Facebook data breaches
Facebook has suffered multiple data breaches exposing user information:
- Cambridge Analytica – In 2014, an app harvested data on 87 million users which was passed to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm.
- 50 million accounts exposed – In 2018, a vulnerability exposed personal information of 50 million users to hackers.
- 540 million user records leaked – In 2019, Facebook user records including comments and likes were left exposed on unprotected Amazon servers.
These breaches further demonstrate Facebook’s inability to protect user data and maintain privacy.
Lack of informed consent
Facebook has not obtained meaningful consent from users over its data practices. Issues include:
- Lengthy and vague Data Policy – The 15,000 word document is unclear and difficult to interpret.
- Take it or leave it – Users must agree to the Data Policy to use Facebook, with no ability to negotiate terms.
- Changing policies – Facebook often changes policies retroactively without clearly notifying users or getting fresh consent.
- Privacy controls are hidden – Important privacy options are buried away making it hard to restrict data collection.
Facebook makes it nearly impossible for users to understand what they are signing up for and retain control over their information.
Is Facebook violating privacy laws?
Facebook is currently under investigation for violating the following privacy laws:
- GDPR – The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation imposes strict limits on companies’ data collection and use which Facebook appears to be violating.
- CCPA – The California Consumer Privacy Act also regulates data collection and sharing which Facebook may be violating.
- FTC – The US Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Facebook’s practices violate users’ privacy as outlined in its 2011 consent decree.
Facebook faces fines of billions of dollars if regulators determine it failed to protect user privacy as required by these laws.
What should Facebook do to better protect privacy?
To properly protect user privacy, Facebook needs to:
- Obtain explicit, informed consent from users on how their data will be used and shared.
- Allow users to permanently delete their account along with all associated data.
- Implement end-to-end encryption across its products.
- Allow users granular control to limit Facebook’s data collection.
- Restrict profiling of users for targeted advertising.
- Employ privacy experts to monitor data practices and ensure compliance with regulations.
- Conduct regular third-party audits of privacy practices and make reports public.
Facebook has a long way to go to win back user trust through transparency and granting users control over their personal data.
Conclusion
Facebook’s business model centers around collecting as much personal data as possible from users. This data is used to generate targeted ads and shared with partners to enhance Facebook’s products and profits.
In pursuing unchecked data growth, Facebook has repeatedly violated user privacy through practices like covert tracking across the internet, storing data indefinitely, facial recognition without consent, and targeted advertising based on private traits.
Multiple data breaches, vague terms of service, lack of clear consent, and possible legal violations further demonstrate Facebook’s blatant disregard for personal privacy. Until Facebook provides users transparency and control over their data, it cannot be trusted as the steward of people’s personal information.