- I downloaded my Facebook file this week,
and what I found was shocking,
although I guess not altogether unexpected.
This right here is 112 pages of my search history,
every term that I've ever put in a search bar on Facebook.
This is 331 pages worth of all the likes
and comments I've ever done,
135 pages worth of contact information,
mostly phone numbers that I unintentionally uploaded
to the platform.
Sorry, guys.
146 pages of comments, 152 pages of group activity.
The list goes on and on,
and I didn't even print out half of it.
It's estimated that Facebook classifies
roughly 52,000 traits about you.
Can you believe that?
And what's crazy is that you don't even have to be
an active user on Facebook in order for them
to gather this information.
In fact, you don't need to have a Facebook account at all.
(bright music)
Welcome to All Things Secured.
My name's Josh, and as fun as it might be
to paint Mark Zuckerberg and the whole Facebook platform
as an evil villain, it doesn't actually help us in our quest
for online privacy, does it?
So what I'd like to do instead is to help us understand
exactly what data Facebook is collecting on us,
how they're collecting it and most importantly,
what power you have, if any,
to limit that data and improve your privacy
while still using the platform if you want to.
It is possible, and if you watch to the end,
I promise you'll be able to immediately take action
by making some changes you didn't know that you could make.
Data is the core of Facebook's business model.
They wanna know you so well, that they can guess exactly
what you want when you want it
and then package up that information and sell it off
to the highest bidder.
That can be something as simple as a pair of shoes
or perhaps even a larger item like a car,
but they could also be guessing which candidate you want
to win an election
or how much debt you're currently holding.
And as harmless as this may seem on the surface,
such information can be used to easily influence people
who already have a known bias.
So if I as an advertiser already know
that you support a certain political candidate,
I can easily target and at least try to persuade you
to feel or to act a certain way.
This, at least in part, was the basis
for that whole Cambridge Analytica scandal
that was disclosed back in 2018.
Facebook was slapped with a $5 billion fine
by the Federal Trade Commission,
and they paid half a million pounds to the U.K. government,
and they may changes to their privacy settings,
but guess what?
They're still collecting my data.
But before we can discuss what you can do to stop or limit,
I should say, that collection,
I think we need to first understand
how they're collecting your data.
There are four primary kinds of data
that Facebook tracks about you.
The first is what I'm gonna call explicit data.
This is obvious, but it still needs to be said,
Facebook collects the data that we voluntarily give to them.
When you upload a photo,
tell them where you went to university,
click like on a specific brand,
this is detailed information
that you're voluntarily giving to them.
And please, please understand that posting some kind
of legal disclaimer on your wall saying
that you don't give them the right to use this data
or whatever, it does nothing.
The deal you made with Facebook when you signed up
is very simple.
They give you a social network.
You give them your data, period.
The second kind of data that Facebook tracks
is your metadata.
What do I mean by this?
Remember that photo you uploaded to Facebook?
Whether you realize it or not,
that photo is embedded with what's known as EXIF data,
which is just a bunch of information about the picture file,
including what kind of camera you used
to take the picture with, the exact date
and time the picture was taken
and even the exact GPS coordinates where you were standing
when you took the picture.
When you use the Facebook app,
they're tracking your IP address,
what kind of phone you use, and again, your location.
So even if you don't explicitly tell Facebook
your current city, which I haven't,
I have specifically omitted that information
from my profile.
My Facebook file still shows my location accurately.
It's in a folder labeled location,
and they've correctly identified my primary location,
and they've logged which cell service provider I use
with my phone.
The third type of data Facebook collects
is what they're now calling off-Facebook activity.
Let me explain it this way.
I have a website, allthingssecured.com,
and a Facebook page for that brand.
Now, what Facebook allows me to do is to install
what's known as a Facebook pixel onto my website
that will track you, as a Facebook user,
across the internet.
I can use that information to retarget you
with ads anywhere else
or to simply track how well my Facebook ads are performing.
Now, I don't do this, just to be clear,
but the Facebook pixel is estimated to be used
on more than 8 million websites worldwide.
And yes, you've most likely visited
at least one of them today.
But the pixel isn't the only way
that Facebook tracks you over the internet.
Anytime you see a Facebook Share button,
one of the Facebook Like buttons
or even a sign in with Facebook button on a website,
they've got you.
And don't forget WhatsApp and Instagram
because it's all integrated and connected.
Finally, the last kind of data
that Facebook collects on you,
at least that we're gonna cover here, is third-party data.
This comes in a number of different forms.
One example would be the data that advertisers upload.
This right here is 81 pages worth of companies
that have uploaded my data to Facebook.
This includes stores that I've shopped at,
companies whose software I've purchased,
dealerships where I've looked at cars,
and a whole host of companies that I don't even know
where they got my information from.
Facebook gleans and infers all kinds of things
based on this data, and it also gathers intelligence
from other areas, including everything
from automotive industry groups
to credit monitoring services.
Okay, so that's the bad news.
Now let's talk about what you and I can do about it.
As I've been doing research on all of this for this video,
I've come across so many different ways
that you can not only limit what Facebook collects on you
but also restrict what they can do with it.
I can't cover every single one of them in this video,
but I'm gonna give you six things that you can do today
that will have the biggest impact on your overall privacy,
at least in relation to Facebook.
First, and you may not wanna hear this,
but I highly recommend you delete the Facebook app
on your phone and tablet.
I still access Facebook on my phone
using my Firefox browser,
but this limits a lot of that metadata I was telling you
that Facebook collects.
If you absolutely must use the app,
make sure to lock down your privacy settings
and click Ask App not to Track when apple asks you.
Following along with this,
the second thing I recommend is to use an internet browser
like Brave or Firefox to browse the internet.
Personally, I've added the Facebook Container extension
to my Firefox browser that basically fences is in
or contains what Facebook can see.
Anytime I visit a site that has a Facebook pixel,
a Facebook Share button, Like button, whatever,
Facebook won't be able to track that I've been there,
unless, of course, I actually press one of those Like
or Share buttons.
But that doesn't help at all with all the data
that Facebook has already collected on me,
which leads me to my third point.
I recommend that you jump onto your Facebook account
and manage your off-Facebook activity.
You can find this under Settings,
Your Facebook Information,
and then navigate to Off-Facebook Activity.
Here, you have the option to turn off future activity
and clear the history of what has already been tracked.
A couple of things here.
It's important to note that doing this
doesn't actually stop Facebook from tracking the data.
It just breaks the connection between what you do
on Facebook and everything that you do
on the rest of the internet.
So if you're shopping for a new camera on another website,
you won't suddenly be inundated with ads
for cameras on your newsfeed.
Second, if you want a more step-by-step process
for how this and this next thing I'm gonna tell you about
in your Facebook privacy settings goes,
I want you to watch this video
because I've gone step-by-step through the whole process,
and I've included a link to that video in the description.
Okay, the fourth step that I recommend you take
is to make your public profile just a bit more private.
There's no reason that a stranger should be able
to find your public profile and be able to see
who your friends are, which city you live in,
what university you went into,
who your mother is and what her maiden name is,
what's your family looks like with all your photos.
Facebook gives you the ability to hide this information
or to at least be selective about who can see it,
but it's up to you to actually make those changes
in your settings.
It only takes a few minutes
to go through their privacy checkup.
And then I also took the extra step
of limiting the audience for my past posts
to make sure they weren't public for the world to see.
The fifth step you can take is to be a little more careful
about how you upload your photos.
We're talking about Facebook right now,
but the same thing can be said
for a lotta different platforms.
Remember that EXIF data that I was talking
to you about earlier?
Unfortunately, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
all of those, they don't give you an option to upload files
without this data.
So it's up to you to strip the EXIF data yourself.
Well, how do you do that?
I'm sure there's probably some sort of app I'm not aware of,
but for me, the easiest and most simplest way,
at least on an Apple iPhone,
is to go in and access the photo via my Photos app
and then click down here on the Share button.
And now when I click up here on the Options,
I can toggle whether to include the location data or not.
The resulting photo can either be shared directly
to the Facebook or Instagram app
if I still have that on my phone,
or you can save it to another album
and then upload it from there.
The final step is this.
Be stingy about the information
you voluntarily give to Facebook.
I mean, I don't wanna be a killjoy here.
You can still use Facebook, but stop checking into places.
Stop tagging your photos
or interacting with quizzes and polls.
It may seem like nothing, but over the course of years,
it actually adds up to be something.
Facebook already tracks a ton of information about us.
We live in a world where it's virtually impossible
to get around that kind of tracking,
even if you were to delete your Facebook account altogether.
So the best thing that you can do is to take steps
to stop giving them all this information
and then restrict what they can do with the information
that we do give them.
If this video was helpful, please give it a thumbs up,
and make sure you continue with the rest of the videos
in this series covering not just Facebook,
but also Amazon, Google, and others.
Privacy only comes to those who work for it.