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Here Are 18 Things You Might Not Have Realized Facebook Tracks About You

BuzzFeed: “When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he said he’d have his team follow up on questions he couldn’t answer in full during the hearing. On Monday, Congress released a massive document with written answers to those questions. These responses were a good reminder that Facebook records a ton of information about you, including:

  • Information from “computers, phones, connected TVs, and other web-connected devices”
  • mouse movements” on your computer
  • “app and file names” (and the types of files) on your devices
  • whether the browser window with Facebook open is “foregrounded or backgrounded
  • information about “nearby Wi-Fi access points, beacons, and cell towers”
  • information “about other devices that are nearby or on their network”
  • “battery level”
  • “available storage space”
  • installed “plugins”
  • “connection speed”
  • “purchases [users] make” on off-Facebook websites
  • contact information “such as an address book” or, for Android users, “call log or SMS log history” if synced, for finding “people they may know” (Here’s how to turn off contact uploading or delete contacts you’ve uploaded.)
  • information “about how users use features like our camera”
  • “location of a photo or the date a file was created” through the file’s metadat
  • information through your device’s settings such as “GPS location, camera, or photos
  • information about your *online and offline actions* and purchases from third-party data providers
  • “device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts users use
  • “when others share or comment on a photo of them, send a message to them, or upload, sync or import their contact information”…”

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