Facebook Data Dump Reveals Which Advertisers Have Access to Your Personal Data

It has been a terrible week for Facebook; the social media
giant got caught up in the data privacy scandal linked with data analytics firm Cambridge analytical (CA). Since the scandal came to
light, users have been looking for ways to remove their data from the social
media website prompting the #DeleteFacebook online campaign.

A tweet thread by software developer Dylan McKay suggests an interesting revelation wherein Facebook has
access to call history details of McKay’s conversations with his partner’s
mother. Add to that, Facebook seems to have historical records of all contacts
(even those deleted), metadata of text messages, and metadata of cellular call
logs. 
Notably, he was using an Android phone during November
2016 and July 2017 when the data breach seems to have occurred.
How to Download Your Facebook History Account Data
To view the history of your Facebook account’s data
>> log in to Facebook.com on the desktop browser,
>>click on the drop down icon on the top right of the
page and select Settings. 
>>In the General tab, you will see the Download a copy of your Facebook data
option. Clicking that will prompt you to re-enter your Facebook password. An
email containing a ZIP file will then be sent to your registered email address.
File size can depend on the activity frequency and age of
your Facebook profile. In my case, it was a massive size of 1.6GB
Advertisers Extracting Data From Your Facebook Profile
The ZIP file you downloaded contains an HTML folder, which
has a page titled ‘ads.html’. Here, you can find the list of “Advertisers
with your contact info” buried at the end of the HTML page.
The zip file also contains contains the entire list of
third-party apps that you have installed on or linked with your Facebook
account. It has IP addresses you’ve logged in from, email addresses, contact
numbers of all friends you have added and pages you have liked; even all your
phonebook contacts from Android smartphones you have used to log in to the
Facebook account.
It contains metadata on Facebook events, your friend list, messages,
places you have checked into, videos you have uploaded/ been tagged in,
and also every like and poke you’ve made.
The zip file contains more, you just need to check it out.
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21 thoughts on “Facebook Data Dump Reveals Which Advertisers Have Access to Your Personal Data”

  1. Wow. This is serious. Facebook using us for marketing gains. No wonder dey are allowing people to even use Facebook for free without data so as to keep getting all dis info for advertisers

    • I don't usually comment on this platform but a regular visitor. On this, I just have to comment. @Akinwale, Your data is very very useful to you if you don't know. Your Gov't can request for your data from FB and it will be given to them, carry on a secret investigation on you and nab you on the spot.

      Never say you don't about your online user data until you are arrested for fraudulent act. #YourDataIsusefulToYou

  2. Akinwale Adedeji I feel you jare, loll. Data wey no dey useful to me. But overseas they drink panadol over "data this data that" too much. either way, Facebook is losing its touch

  3. You don’t need to be told, just like hi5, MySpace and the likes, Facebook is going down. You just won’t believe we Nigerians got really crazy of Facebook. Ask Mark, he’d tell you Americans don’t even use Facebook like we do, the whole of Africa uses Facebook more than the rest of the world. We have to grow up, ask an American if he/she uses Whatsapp, most of them never user Whatsapp nor Facebook despite using sofisticated phone, they have expensive phones with them but each courier has its own plan that enables multi texting unlike us here. Do you think it’s facebook alone that has the only way of getting through to your loved ones? You’re pretty wrong, before Facebook and the likes, you’d been living, get the mobile number of your friends and start talking to them off Facebook. I bet it with you, most providers even in Africa won’t want Facebook to ever exist again, sit down and think for real.

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