It’s a story that’s been almost impossible to escape recently, how a political consulting firm managed to siphon off personal data of millions of Facebook users and then use it for political targeting. Shocking. So, this week, I decided to download my Facebook file to see what exactly they could siphon off on me if they felt the need. After reading about the shock of other users regarding the sheer level of detail tracked and retained by Facebook, I was very curious to check it out.
I’ve been a user since 2007: my Facebook data file tells me that I signed up on a Tuesday at 10:22pm, BST, exact date July 17th. All I’m missing there is a weather report on the evening. We were certainly off to a good start on the detail front.
In fairness, my Facebook account was almost dormant until I moved to Norway five years ago, when it suddenly became a great connecting gateway between old and new worlds. I enjoy Facebook. My friends on Facebook are all people I hold in high regard from various phases of life and I love the fact that they can still make me smile, or even laugh with their life updates. I tend to tune in at least once a day, if not more. I’ve used Messenger constantly since the early days as it just made sense with instant chat capability at no cost. The data file contains information on both.
First up was the Photos folder, all the photos I’ve ever posted on Facebook. It was no real surprise to me that my photos are collated and served up on my data file. I even enjoyed clicking through the tale they told of the last decade. I had quite a few “Awww, I remember that!” moments as I trotted off down memory lane for a half hour.
Then as I moved on and rifled through folders like Timeline and Contact Info, the revelations came tumbling. I’ll admit that I began to experience some strange emotions; a tightening around the heart and, at risk of getting too technical, a swoony feeling in the head. For anyone who ever found a letter on their mat one day and opened it up to find that a private detective had been following them for years, I’d imagine it was a similar feeling to what they experienced.
First off, to the important stuff. I was able to establish that eleven people wished me a Happy Birthday in 2007 and, despite the fact that I had gained some new Facebook ‘friends’, the number cruelly and inexplicably dropped in 2008, then climbed again before flat-lining over the last few years. I’m left with this anxious feeling now, not really being able to interpret all of this. Is it being over 40 that brings the flatline? Are my Facebook buddies not paying attention to me anymore? What’s going to happen from now on? So many questions that you force me to confront, dear Facebook.
If only I had known that time when I lost my phone a few years back that good old Facebook had a copy of ALL of my contacts saved for me, not just for those people whom I’m connected with on Facebook or Messenger. No, those nice Facebook people probably didn’t want to be selective and just hoovered up the whole contact list. Next time I lose or even misplace my phone, I’m delighted that I can just ring up Facebook and ask them for my dentist’s phone number, safe in the knowledge that they’ll have it.
And as for that increasing burden of trying to remember when I did what over the rolling years, there is confusion no more. Facebook has the answer to many perplexing questions, for example, was it 2014 or 2015 when I spent time working in London, did we go to Germany on holidays last year, when did we move to Norway. I really didn’t know that Facebook was on the case in managing all of this information for me: it seems to be able to serve up every IP address I’ve used to access Facebook. Imagine that. So, it knows exactly when I was where and it compiles it all on a list. All those times I checked in on Facebook when I was trying to avoid having something better to do, Facebook was paying attention and remembering it for me. Almost like a good quality tracking bracelet around my ankle except with no alerts for going out of range – not that I know of at this stage, but I’m not ruling anything out with the current RR (revelation rate) just yet.
I’ve always thought that ‘chatting’ with apps like Messenger or Whats App had this very fast and impromptu feeling to it. You don’t think for an hour about the optimal way to express yourself or if your sentence structure is a bit pants, it’s about getting a message across. Well, I clearly had it all wrong. Facebook things my narky comments, god-awful typos and inane organisational detail for nights out are ALL worth saving. Every bit of it. Should I feel honoured – what drips from my fingers to a keyboard is clearly gold and I never knew it – or should I feel spooked and generally irritated. Reading through a message showing how I had the chance of a ticket for an REM concert in London in 2009, if only I had read a message on Messenger a few hours earlier, doesn’t make me feel good, Facebook. Also, how I missed the chance to see a friend in London for just one night in 2007 as she was passing through; she’s now in Australia and I’m in Norway with few paths crossing. It’s like Facebook has taken up the opportunity to retain and taunt on all those bad decisions with no chance of revisions.
The funny things is that if I was on the phone having a private conversation with say, my sister, I’d expect my telephony provider to record that the call happened but not the content of the call. The content is private, between us only. However, Facebook as another communications service provider, doesn’t just record that a text chat happened, they record the full script of the chat.
Now, the only reason I would imagine they would do that for my benefit is a) in case I totally lose my memory and need to be reminded that I have a life or b) that I’m a master criminal and will need this as proof that, “This time, Officer, it wasn’t me. Here you go, Officer, I was in Amsterdam with my friends that weekend, erm….. visiting museums. See,Facebook says so! Just get yourself a cup of tea and read through all of my planning and diatribing about delayed flights”.
This scares me greatly, not because anyone would be so very interested in my chat logs but there’s a sense of Big Brother watching. And recording.
I read recently that police in North Carolina in the US have been successfully slapping warrants on Google to force them to supply location data on mobile phones where a crime has been committed. But this isn’t after they’ve done all of their police work, whittled it down to a strong suspect and want her/his mobile phone record, it’s for ALL phones within a radius of a crime. So, what this means is that the information that the likes of Google or Facebook have on you, can be used against you if the police authorities can convince the justice system that it’s for the greater good.
So, you might just be driving to a small town in North Carolina to visit your long-lost friend of an afternoon and use Google Maps to give yourself a chance of ever getting to her house. Suddenly, the police know all about your movements through your Google Maps trail and have you on a list because Google told them that you were in the area. So, thanks to your Google Maps snitching on you, you’re a potential suspect to be eliminated now, and all you did was sit in your car and sing along to the radio. Yep, Big Brother has you covered all right.
There is of course the question that we users should be more savvy and know exactly what we’re signing up for when we use social media or online apps. It’s a fair point but I don’t buy that there is any blame here, not for a second. When we entrust our personal information, it’s reasonable to expect that these online platforms should protect it. Facebook is in boiling water at the moment because of some 200,000 users who did one of their great personality quizzes and ended up having not just their own data but data of all of their contacts sucked up and sent to Cambridge Analytica for some good old electioneering. To the shock and awe of many, Trump got elected and Brexit got voted in; if the pre-election targeting, propaganda and manipulation via social media on these campaigns is true, this data harvesting is clearly a global game changer. I do hope however that some good will come of all of this, where the law finally catches up on the online world and there’s a tightening of international legislation around online privacy and data usage.
As for me, I’m still using Facebook, for now anyway. But at least now I know that the next time I have an existential crisis, I can limit the inner soul-searching and just go to my Facebook file to answer the question, “Who am I?”. It’s all there for the downloading.
