Location Facebook knows who you may be familiar
Technologies / / December 19, 2019
As the mechanism recommendations of friends working in Facebook
One would think that Facebook recommends friends in the same way as it happens in real life: you say that someone you know, and you advise people who know that someone. In fact, the social networking system is much more complicated, and the results of their work are less obvious.
Outside profile in Facebook, which you have created for themselves, lies another. For him, the data collected from the incoming messages and other smartphone users. By your account is linked contact information you service never provided.
Such shadow profiles has been known for several years, but many people are unaware of their potential or not at all aware of their existence. You can not even find out how many things you know about the company, until the float for some new recommendation.
Take some anonymous lawyer. Facebook does not scan his work e-mail, but he certainly knows the box, even if the lawyer never gave his company. If someone who has the contacts have e-mail address of a lawyer, decided to share it with Facebook, the company can create a relationship between the lawyer and anyone who also knows this box.
Depending on the nature of the relationship between people algorithms can work in different ways. But there is a possibility that the company really looks work e-mail users.
When you register on a social network you are immediately asked to provide access to the address book to the service could find for you friends. The browser-based version of the site page Search friends does not cause any suspicion. Although in this case the company keeps all the information about the transfer contacts.
The application for smartphones framed option is much more colorful. But immediately warn you: look who has to Facebook, but it is continuously upload your contacts. A below reads: "Information about your contacts... will be sent to Facebook, to help you and others to find friends faster."
This already vague wording is even more ambiguous, if you click "More":
If you want to look for friends on Facebook, we will use and safely store information about your contacts, including name and any nicknames; contacts' photos; phone numbers and other contact or related data that you can add, such as marital status or profession; as well as data on these contacts on your phone. This will allow Facebook to make recommendations to you and others, as well as improve the quality of service.
But the company warned that corporate or personal information may be stored on your device. She asks send to friends only those you know personally and who do not mind getting your inquiry.
Then Facebook takes and does everything that he asks you to do. If you give your consent to send your contacts, all of them will be at the disposal of the social network. With them, it will look for links between all those you at least know a little bit - and you do not even notice.
Facebook says that does not create shadow profiles of people who are not registered in the service. But the existence of such profiles became widely known in 2013, when the company announced that it had discovered and corrected the "bug". Its essence is that when a user upload data as a file, Then it can be found not only open, but also shadow the contact information of friends.
The company is struggling to talk as little as possible about how much data collected about users. "Recommendations of the people you may know, based on the contact information that we receive from the people and their friends - shared representative Steynfeld Facebook Matt (Matt Steinfeld). - Sometimes this means that a friend or an acquaintance could download contact information like email address or phone number, which we associate with you. This and other signals help us to advise the people you are likely to know, and who want to be friends with you on Facebook ».
The Instagram and WhatsApp, which owns Facebook, too, can be loaded contacts. But these data, according to Steynfelda company for recommendations from friends are not using.
When Steynfeld says "friend or an acquaintance," he is referring to is the one person who could ever burn your phone or a mailbox in your contacts. Therefore, it is likely, Facebook knows every place where you lived or stayed, each e-mail address that was used, and every landline or mobile phone, from which rang. Also included are all of your nicknames, profiles on social networks, accounts in the messenger, and much more.
None of that Facebook does not consider information that belongs to you. This is the information of people who have downloaded it, and once they have control over it.
Imagine how difficult it all is able to create, for example, to a police officer who works undercover. He will have to maintain the highest possible degree of secrecy, that no man could bind two of his personality together. If at least one Facebook user would contact information of both individuals, the consequences will be catastrophic.
With all the available information the company may not only bind you to those who have your contact details. If two different people have your email address or phone number, social network suggests that these users also know each other. And it need not be an address or phone number you have given yourself Facebook.
What to do if you want to take away the company's access to your data
You have to look for each person you have ever given your contacts and who loaded them into a social network. Then, only one after the other to go to ask Control page and invitations to import contacts and delete information.
"When the contact is deleted, we sotrom it from our systems. But, of course, it is likely that the same contact was uploaded by someone else, "- wrote Steynfeld.
Shadow profile can not be disabled. The only thing that can be done to prevent the operation of the system, - prohibit people to find your profile on a phone number or email address. To do this, go to Facebook Privacy Settings.
But it also does not apply to your shadow profile. The company can not even give users the ability to view the hidden information, as it would violate the privacy of those who provided the data.
See also:
- Facebook does what he wants with personal data and manipulate your behavior →
- Guide for the paranoid: how to avoid surveillance and data theft →
- Why smartphones are watching us and how to wean them from this →
- How to protect personal data on the Internet →