Facebook's Massive Privacy Breach, Your Private Data Is Being Collected Without Your Permission
SUPPORT JOURNALISM. Become a patron athttp://www.patreon.com/TimcastMy Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnewsThis is not about Facebook asking for information or Cambridge Analytica. This is about Facebook taking third party data they never got approval to have.Just because you agree to share your data with facebook doesnt I did and if you have information on me you shouldnt be able to share that with Facebook.Facebook is collecting private information on people who never agreed to share it with them.Make sure to subscribe for more travel, news, opinion, and documentary with Tim Pool everyday.Amazon Prime 30 day free trial - http://amzn.to/2sgiDqRMY GEARGoPro Karma - http://amzn.to/2qw10m4GoPro 6 - http://amzn.to/2CEK0z1DJI Mavic Drone - http://amzn.to/2lX9qgTZagg 12 AMP portable battery - http://amzn.to/2lXB6SxTASCAM Lavalier mic - http://amzn.to/2AwoIhI Canon HD XF 105 Camera - http://amzn.to/2m6v1o3Canon 5D MK III Camera - http://amzn.to/2CvFnnm360 Camera (VR) - http://amzn.to/2AxKu4RFOLLOW MEInstagram - http://instagram.com/TimcastTwitter - http://twitter.com/TimcastMinds - http://Minds.com/TimcastFacebook - http://facebook.com/TimcastnewsBitcoin Wallet: 13ha54MW2hYUS3q1jJhFyWdpNfdfMWtmhZSEND STUFF HERETim Pool330 Washington Street - PMB 517Hoboken, NJ 07030Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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For some reason, it's just now that people are worried about what Facebook is doing with their data.
Facebook's been collecting your data since the inception of Facebook.
That's literally what Facebook does.
You log in, you put your information into Facebook, including what you had for dinner.
What you had for breakfast, where you were, who you're friends with, what your phone number is, your birthday.
You're giving them all of your information.
So why now?
Well, following news that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked with the Trump campaign, was using data they probably shouldn't have, people decided to actually look At what information about them was being stored by Facebook.
And obviously, they were a bit shocked to find out that not only is basically all of your contact list
from your phone in Facebook, but Facebook was actually tracking your phone calls
and your text messages.
Now, this video isn't just to brag on Facebook and criticize their panopticon,
their data collection practices, but also point out that you all agreed to this.
Maybe some of the responsibility falls on us as much as it falls onto Facebook.
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Our first story from The Verge.
Facebook has been collecting call history and SMS data from Android devices, though, IOS devices appear to be unaffected.
Several Twitter users have reported finding months or years of call history data in their downloadable Facebook data file.
A number of Facebook users have been spooked by the recent Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, prompting them to download all the data that Facebook stores on their account.
The results have been alarming for some.
Oh wow, my deleted Facebook zip file contains info on every single cell phone call and text I made for about a year, says Twitter user Matt Johnson.
Another, Dylan McKay, says, somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mom.
Others have found a similar pattern, where it appears close contacts like family members are the ones tracked in Facebook's call records.
Ars Technica reports that Facebook has been requesting access to contacts, SMS data, and call history in Android devices to improve its friend recommendation algorithm and distinguish between business contacts and your true personal friendships.
Facebook appears to be gathering this data through its Messenger application, which often prompts Android users to take over as the default SMS client.
Facebook has, at least recently, been offering an opt-in prompt that prods users with a big blue button to continuously upload contact data, including call and text history.
It's not clear when this prompt started appearing in relation to the historical data gathering, and whether it has simply been opt-in the whole time.
Either way, it's clearly alarmed some who have found call history data stored on Facebook's servers.
I recommend everybody who has a Facebook profile goes to settings and then clicks download your Facebook data.
It's kind of a big file for me my file was about a gig and a half 1.5 gigabytes and I found well I didn't really find anything that surprising other than every message I have ever sent, and there's some stuff in there that you just want to forget.
People that I'm not friends with anymore.
Ex-girlfriends.
Messages.
You know, I actually made the mistake of going through messages with one of my exes and reading the very happy first message to the very terrifying moment we blocked each other, and Although I'm not shocked it exists, I certainly wish it didn't.
So again, go to Facebook settings, download your history, and look what they have.
Because apparently, many people have opted in to give their data to Facebook and they probably wouldn't if they were paying attention to what they were giving up.
So I just want to point out.
Although a lot of people are freaking out that Facebook has all of this data on them, you have to realize that you agreed to give this to Facebook.
And I understand, it's not just entirely our fault.
Some people will see the terms of a service, and you can't really read everything.
But when you're using a mobile device, it will pop up with, hey, is it okay if we do this?
And I recently installed the Facebook Messenger app on my phone, and it asked me if I wanted to allow them to do a bunch of this stuff, and I said no.
I do not want you having access to this information.
But sure enough, they still have access to my contact list.
What's fascinating about this is that many of the contacts in my Facebook data are not even in my phone anymore.
Some of these people I haven't spoken to in years.
Now, Facebook put out a blog from their newsroom titled, Fact Check, Your Call and SMS History.
And they said, you may have seen some recent reports that Facebook has been logging people's call and SMS history without their permission.
This is not the case.
Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android.
This helps you find and stay connected with the people you care about and provides you with a better experience across Facebook.
People have to expressly agree to use this feature.
If at any time they no longer wish to use this feature, they can turn it off in the settings or here for Facebook Lite users.
And all previously shared call and text history shared via the app is deleted.
While we receive certain permissions from Android, uploading this information has always been opt-in only.
They also say, we never sell this data and this feature does not collect the content of your text messages or calls.
When this feature is enabled, uploading your contacts also allows us to use information like when a call or text was made or received.
This feature does not collect the content of your calls or text messages.
Your information is securely stored and we do not sell this information to third parties.
You are always in control of the information you share with Facebook.
Okay, Facebook says that they're not going to share it with third parties.
But we do know that in some instances, that data has made its way to firms like Cambridge Analytica.
Certainly people are very upset about that.
And how that happened is actually a bit different.
That was someone made an app, people agreed to share data with that app, and Facebook has made a lot of changes to help protect against something like this in the future.
But just because Facebook isn't selling your information to third parties doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about this.
And I think it's important to point out that whenever you have this corporate message, they're going to kind of shift the language a little bit so that you can feel good, like Facebook's actually doing something, when in reality they're still getting exactly what they want.
We see the same thing with YouTube.
YouTube doesn't really answer the questions from creators, it just tells you a kind of different answer to make it seem like everything's okay when it's not really.
If Facebook has all this information, Facebook and Facebook properties can use this.
So don't forget, Facebook owns other apps and other products.
That means, while it is good, That third-party companies, you know, random companies that might want to buy this aren't going to have access to your information.
Every single Facebook property does and Facebook as a whole can use it however they see fit because you've agreed to give it to them.
But now let's take a look as to why the contact list and this metadata actually can be pretty alarming.
Facebook knows more about you, your friends, and your family than just the information you give to them, okay?
If you say, Facebook, yes, you can have my contact information, because who cares?
I don't care if you have all of my friends, my contacts on your list.
I add these people anyway, so certainly Facebook already knows who they are.
But let's say one of your friends doesn't want their phone number on Facebook.
You are friends with someone named John or Jane Smith.
You have John or Jane Smith's phone number in your phone.
Facebook then sees this is your friend and correlates that phone number to that profile.
Now, I'm not saying they actually do this, but they can do this.
Essentially, you are giving up private information that doesn't belong to you.
You have someone else's phone number that is their private information.
In my opinion, it is a violation of third-party privacy for Facebook to take contact information from your phone whether or not you gave it permission to do so.
If I give you my phone number, I don't want you giving my phone number out to other people.
And if Facebook or some other app says, would you like to give us this information, you shouldn't be allowed to do that and Facebook shouldn't be storing my phone number because you said they could.
Now Facebook can correlate your friendship to me on Facebook and then align that phone number with me and now Facebook has my phone number.
Think about how far that goes.
It goes beyond just phone numbers.
Let's say you meet someone, and you're not really friends with them or anything, but you exchange numbers for a business reason.
And this person is an audio engineer, so you say, audio engineer from this place, and a phone number.
Someone else, who is friends with this person, will call John or Jane Smith.
says John or Jane Smith's phone number is this number.
Facebook can then correlate that number to the name given in that phone and say John or Jane Smith might be an audio engineer.
More information is being given in than just what people realize.
When Facebook has all of this metadata, they can connect the dots and come to learn a lot more about all of us than what we agreed to give them.
If I make a phone call to you If I send a text message to you, I don't want Facebook to know that.
And simply because you said they could have it doesn't mean I said they could either.
Facebook has no right to know when I send a message to you.
And you shouldn't even have the ability to give my private information to Facebook.
This is an important bit of context that is being left out of the discussion.
When it comes to data firms getting access to our information and using that for political purposes, when it comes to Facebook using this information for their platform or from any other app or any other company that might be selling it to a third party, the point is you are asking for permission to take a third party's private information and that shouldn't be possible, but it is.
And that means these companies, whether they want to sell me a Coke or they want me to vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, are getting access to my information, building a psychographic profile on me based on information other people are giving.
Now let's talk about scale and how problematic this actually becomes.
Facebook is getting access to information that I never agreed to give it.
You did, and other people did.
Let's say we have a hundred people, and sixty or seventy of them use Android devices.
Facebook then takes all of the call history and texting data from these phones, whether or not the people sending the texts agree, okay?
So that means if you send me a text, I might just say, sure Facebook, you can know that happened.
But think about what happens at a larger scale.
Everyone I text who is on Android, who has allowed Facebook to do this, is telling them when I texted them.
That means, for the most part, Facebook can draw a clear picture of who I'm talking to and when, because everyone is giving up this information.
You have to think beyond just the individual scale.
This is not an issue of, I gave my information to Facebook.
This is an issue of we are all giving information on ourselves and other people to Facebook and that allows them to draw clear pictures of exactly who we're talking to and what we're doing.
Then they can correlate anything posted to Facebook with those phone calls and text messages and possibly determine what you were talking about or at least the context of the conversation.
Even though we should take responsibility for giving up our private information to Facebook, Facebook is getting access to third-party information through us.
And there are people who might not want to be on the grid or might not want to be on a Facebook, but I assure you Facebook has their data as well by correlating the data of everyone that person knows.
This is just a quick analysis of some of the problems I see with handing over all of your data to Facebook.
And although we can request our data from Facebook, we can't request the data that Facebook has learned Or inferred based on the data we've given them.
When you combine my data with your data, Facebook learns a million more things, and we can't request that information, but I'd sure like to know what the hell they've discovered based on the collection of data from so many people.
Over a billion.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
This is not a new problem.
And I'm really curious as to why people are only bringing it up now.
Because we've known about these data breaches forever.
We've known about this particular breach for, I believe, two years.
And Facebook has been collecting our information forever, so why is it becoming relevant today?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
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