Facebook Use Shadow Profiles to Collect Your Personal Data

And Facebook's Shadow Profile is created at the same time that you made your personal profile on Facebook. This profile is established as a way for Facebook to get to know you REALLY well.

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One of the Shadow Profile's uses is to find people that you might know, and to refer these people to you as friends. You know those "people you may know" sections on your Facebook account? Data from your shadow profile is used to recommend these people to you.

But your shadow profile is much more than this. And it's insanely scary how complete these profiles can be in regards to your personal data. What's even scarier though, is that much of this data is information that you never purposely provided to Facebook.

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So how do Facebook collect your personal data without your permission?

This is the sneakiest thing I have ever discovered about Facebook. They collect your personal information via anyone who has any of your contact information stored in their phone.

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Essentially, whenever someone uses the "Find Friends" feature in Facebook, this person has authorised Facebook to search their phone and/ or stored email addresses on their computer. Facebook stores the email addresses and phone numbers on their servers, and then uses this data to build shadow profiles for anyone using Facebook, and even more scarily, potentially anyone who isn't on Facebook.

This practice is far from new and has been occurring as far back as 2011, so the volume of contact information that Facebook has access to is mind boggling. Personally, I'm quite frustrated that I've only recently discovered this information. Many people that I know have used the "find friends" feature on Facebook. So the company probably has most of my available contact data.

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So what's the big deal?

Other than being a serious invasion of your privacy, a shadow profile containing personal data you have never willingly provided can lead to some disturbing and sometimes dangerous situations.

This reddit user had quite a distressing experience for example:

Yes. Very weird stuff tbh. I was sexually assaulted at university a few years ago and had to leave the school because of it. I used to have a second Facebook account because I just have a group of other women that I talk to about this and don't want to post about it on my first Facebook. The second Facebook doesn't have my real name, or my real photo (I have a photo of Patsy Walker from the comic "Hellcat" instead), my number attached to it and I've never written his name (my assaulter) on the Facebook or anything. I don't even have his number, he was a stranger who I found out his name later. But I do talk about my assault on that account.

One day I sign in, and there he is. The first suggestion. NO mutual friends. No connections whatsoever. It's never suggested any of my friends from University. It was bizarre and unsettling. I ended up deleting the account after that because I had such a horrible panic attack.

And there are plenty of other examples of people's experience with the "People You May Know" feature of Facebook. One journalist wrote about how Facebook connected her with a relative she had never met due to her grandfather abandoning her father when he was a baby. What's even more impressive is that most of the people involved in this story never actually used Facebook.

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Then there's the sex worker who uses a private identity and contact information for her work and only has a Facebook account under her real identity. This person had her profile put in front of her various clients via the "People You May Know" feature on Facebook, and therefore had her secret identity completely destroyed. This exposure put her, and her career as an academic, in serious jeopardy. It also potentially provided her clients with an idea as to where she worked, lived and places she frequented, depending on how much information she provided on her Facebook profile.

"The worst nightmare of sex workers is to have your real name out there, and Facebook connecting people like this is the harbinger of that nightmare," she said. "With all the precautions we take and the different phone numbers we use, why the fuck are they showing up? How is this happening?"

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Facebook could potentially know every step you make

And this is the key concern with Shadow Profiles and the amount of information that Facebook collects about you. If you're someone who loves to check in at places you visit. If you open Facebook while out with friends, you've probably told Facebook where you are and potentially even who you're with if your friends have Facebook open on their phones. If you've provided your workplace, likes and interests on Facebook. Then there probably isn't much that Facebook doesn't know about you. It's incredibly scary to think that a company can hold this much personal data about you. And it really makes me regret creating a profile to begin with.

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So is there a solution?

I've only encountered a couple of simple solutions to this problem (if you want to continue using Facebook that is), and it isn't a good one.

"People can always control who can send them friend requests by visiting their account settings," said the spokesperson. "If they select 'no one,' they won't appear in others' People You May Know."

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The other solution is rather time consuming: You'll need to contact every single person who could have potentially unwittingly uploaded your contact details to Facebook and ask them to delete your details via this page.

Not great eh?

Sadly, Facebook are going to hang on very tightly to all the personal data that they have already obtained. So removing your details from their servers will be very challenging indeed.

Facebook love data. The more data they have, the more effective their algorithms will be when targeting their massive audience with advertising campaigns that are conducted via Facebook and their other connected platforms.

The best solution really is to simply avoid using Facebook and similar social media platforms. They are really only designed for the purpose of getting paid advertising in front of your eyeballs, and there's even some evidence that these platforms are damaging to your mental well-being.

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Want to learn more about this topic? Here's some further reading

Gizmodo on how Facebook and People You May Know
How Facebook Outs Sex Workers
Facebook and Shadow Profiles

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