Some Surprising Ways Facebook Tracks Users

June 14, 2018

You would have to be living under a rock to not know Facebook collects boatloads of data on people who have Facebook accounts. But few people understand Facebook’s data collection practices and how the company tracks them while they’re on logged into Facebook or just browsing the web.

The privacy blog PogoWasRight.org has a link to a Daily Mail article  listing “18 things you may not realise Facebook knows about you.”  The newspaper compiled the list from reports created by the social media platform in response to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent Congressional testimony concerning the Cambridge Analytica scandal. You may be surprised to learn Facebook tracks things like your mouse movements while you’re logged into Facebook, what plugins you have installed and your device’s battery level.

  1. ‘Device information’ from ‘computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices,’ as well as your ‘internet service provider or mobile operator’

  2. ‘Mouse movements’, which can help distinguish humans from bots

  3. ‘App and file names’, including the types of files on your devices .

  4. ‘Device operations’ such as whether a window running Facebook is ‘foregrounded or backgrounded’

  5. ‘Device signals’, including ‘nearby Wi-Fi access points, beacons, and cell towers’ and ‘signal strength’ as well as Bluetooth signals

  6. ‘Other devices that are nearby or on their network’

  7. ‘Battery level’

  8. ‘Available storage space’

  9. ‘Plugins’ installed

  10. ‘Connection speed’

  11. ‘Purchases’ Facebook users make on third-party websites

  12. Contact information ‘such as an address book’ and ‘call log or SMS log history’ for Android users with these settings synced

  13. Information ‘about how users use features like our camera’

  14. The ‘location of a photo or the date a file was created’ through the file’s metadata

  15. ‘GPS location, camera, or photo’ information found through your device’s settings

  16. Purchases from third-party data providers as well as other information about your ‘online and offline actions’

  17. ‘Device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts users use’

  18. ‘When others share or comment on a photo of them, send a message to them, or upload, sync or import their contact information’ text