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Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

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Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#1

Post by zwaps »

See https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/9d8e069d-2670-4530-bcdc-d3a63a8831c4/7C8DE61421D13E86FC6855CC2EA7AEA7.senate-commerce-committee-combined-qfrs-06.11.2018.pdf

Note the answer to the question 11:

"Mr. Zuckerberg, how does Facebook determine whether and for how long to store user data or delete user data?"

Answer: "In general, when a user deletes their account, we delete things they have posted, such as their photos and status updates, and they won’t be able to recover that information later (Information that others have shared about them isn’t part of their account and won’t be deleted.) "

What an interesting way to phrase this. Why "what they posted", instead of "personal data"? This seems like a lawyerized answer telling us that facebook will delete what you posted, but they will not delete your profile, your tracking information (including all mouse cursor movements and ad engagements), your contacts and network, your e-mail?

Also, the answer to question 3 on page 21 confirms that you can opt out of ad-usage of your data, but you can not opt-out of collection of any data...

Finally, question 5 in the same section all but confirms that "Download your data" doesn't actually download all ad-relevant data.

Re: Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#3

Post by zwaps »

wmf wrote: post #2

If you never sign up for Facebook they create a shadow profile about you. It sort of makes sense that if you delete your account it reverts back to the shadow profile.

I am not so sure about that.

Almost any answer in that report is vague or circling the issue. Facebook does state, however, that they do NOT create profiles for non-users, nor track their history.

The vagueness implies that they do not want to lie to the senat. Yet, they state rather clearly that there are no shadow profiles.

Therefore, it seems there actually may be none.

Re: Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#5

Post by featdd »

Not a big surprise... I had a Facebook profile years ago and had to create a fake profile some years later. Needed to add my phone number for access tokens etc. and somehow the moment I saved my number all my old friends and family members showing up as friend suggestions

I think that even careful people on the internet would be disgusted when they could having an unfiltered look in the "real" data Facebook tracked about them

Re: Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#6

Post by zwaps »

featdd wrote: post #5

Not a big surprise... I had a Facebook profile years ago and had to create a fake profile some years later. Needed to add my phone number for access tokens etc. and somehow the moment I saved my number all my old friends and family members showing up as friend suggestions I think that even careful people on the internet would be disgusted when they could having an unfiltered look in the "real" data Facebook tracked a…

Many have similar experiences, but let me quote facebook directly

"When the person visiting a webs ite featuring Facebook’s tools i s not a registered Facebook user, Facebook does not have information identifying t hat individual, and it does not create profiles for this individual. "

So, I wonder: Is facebook triangulating you based on contact information from other users, or are they deceiving the senators in this response?

Re: Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#9

Post by [deleted] »

featdd wrote: post #5

Not a big surprise... I had a Facebook profile years ago and had to create a fake profile some years later. Needed to add my phone number for access tokens etc. and somehow the moment I saved my number all my old friends and family members showing up as friend suggestions I think that even careful people on the internet would be disgusted when they could having an unfiltered look in the "real" data Facebook tracked a…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Does Facebook not delete your personal data along with the account?

#10

Post by newscracker »

featdd wrote: post #5

Not a big surprise... I had a Facebook profile years ago and had to create a fake profile some years later. Needed to add my phone number for access tokens etc. and somehow the moment I saved my number all my old friends and family members showing up as friend suggestions I think that even careful people on the internet would be disgusted when they could having an unfiltered look in the "real" data Facebook tracked a…

> Needed to add my phone number for access tokens etc. and somehow the moment I saved my number all my old friends and family members showing up as friend suggestions

This could also be because one or more of your contacts (likely more) provided permission for the FB app to access their contacts/address book (and never revoked that permission, allowing Facebook to always have a current social graph) or were using pre-6.0 (Marshmallow) Android that didn't even have granular permissions requested at runtime (so apps could be installed only if the user accepted to provide all permissions that apps wanted, which for Facebook included contacts, photos, SMS and more).

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