Item: Facebook has access to more data than you ever realized
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Author: Vyncent Chan

Facebook has access to more data than you ever realized

Facebook already has access to most of your life. Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp are all owned by the same Internet giant. With everyone posting their latest status updates or Insta stories to chronicle their life online, the amount of data available to Facebook is really astounding. But there’s more data that they can glean even without your knowledge.

In an investigation by Privacy International, they found a shocking number of apps that actually send data to Facebook, regardless if you are logged in to Facebook or not. Even more appalling is that the data is shared with Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account.

The apps send data which informs Facebook when the app has been installed and also every time the app is opened. The data sent to the server includes the Google advertising ID, which grants the ability to do a pretty accurate image for profiling purposes.

Some apps even go further than that and sends detailed information to Facebook’s servers. The app KAYAK apparently sends people’s searches to Facebook, and that includes fine details such as departure city, departure airport, departure date, arrival city, arrival airport, arrival date, number of tickets (including number of children), class of tickets (economy, business or first class).

Privacy International goes on to reveal that opt-outs do not seem to have a major impact on the amount or type of data shared with Facebook. This final revelation is probably the most worrying — you only get a false sense of control over what data is shared with Facebook, when in fact you have none.

If you are inclined to read the full report, you can check it out here.

Pokdepinion: Even if Facebook is revealed to have access to everything you do on the Internet, I believe it would be hard for anyone to just quit Facebook anyway.