Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tombrossman 3875 days ago
Facebook explicitly deny creating 'shadow profiles' and I'm not aware of any proof that they do so, have I overlooked this somehow?

I was interested in this too, and I'm in Europe and submitted a formal request for data. I've never used Facebook but because I'm active in a number of community groups, my name comes up on the occasional Facebook page and I'm in photos taken at some events.

At the time I was using a catchall email address so I entered facebook@(my-domain-dot-tld) which is all they used to search for a match. Because that wasn't a real email address I wasn't surprised that in their response they claimed to hold none of my personal data, though that seems a bit weaselly.

Here is their email reply from 2013:

Hi,

We've received your request for information about the possible storage of your personal data.

There isn't a Facebook account associated with the email address from which you are writing. This might be because you don't have a Facebook account or because you already deleted your account. In either of these cases, we do not hold any of your personal data.

Please refer to our Privacy Policy (also called “Data Use Policy”) for more information:

https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy

It contains a description of: - The categories of data being processed by Facebook - The personal data that Facebook receives from Facebook members - The purpose or purposes of the processing of such data - The source or sources(s) of the data, if known - The recipients or categories of recipients to whom Facebook members’ personal data are or may be disclosed

If you're referring to an account associated with another email address, please use that email address to file a new request:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=166828260073047

Once we receive your request, we'll take further steps to assist you.

Thanks, The Facebook Team
1 comments
DanBC 3875 days ago
I suspect that you need to ask a very specific question to get Facebook to reveal what they collect about you.

And I think there's a bunch of information that the EU does think is personal that Facebook thinks is not personal.

We probably need some researchers to send a bunch of requests in for different types of data.

link