Facebook, Google Store More of Your Personal Data Than You Thought

Sure, we knew some amount of our data was stored by Google and Facebook...but do you have a clear idea of how much?

In light of the recent incident of the massive data breach, many are calling for greater social media regulation. The question that has arisen after Cambridge Analytica – the international data mining company – allegedly misused Facebook user data to advise Donald Trump’s 2016 US presidential campaign is that:

How safe is our personal data that we put up on the social networking platforms?

To answer this question, Dylan Curran, a web developer, recently started a massive Twitter thread explaining how Facebook and Google store minute details of user information across all devices.

Curran said that even deleting the information doesn't really help!

Google Stores Much More Than You’d Think

Want to freak yourself out? I'm gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

1. https://t.co/1z255Zt1zf Google stores your location (if you have it turned on) every time you turn on your phone, and you can see a timeline from the first day you started using Google on your phone

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

2. This is every place I have been in the last twelve months in Ireland, going in so far as the time of day I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one pic.twitter.com/I1kB1vwntT

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

3. https://t.co/qFCgY6QLN5 Google stores search history across all your devices on a separate database, so even if you delete your search history and phone history, Google STILL stores everything until you go in and delete everything, and you have to do this on all devices

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Google Customises Ads Based on Your Personal Data

4. https://t.co/QRfgwkNj80 Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lbs in one day?) and income

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

5. Google stores information on every app and extension you use, how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with (who do you talk to on facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep at) https://t.co/RJeRlXhtdq

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

6. https://t.co/5B6qxUvrJz Google stores ALL of your YouTube history, so they know whether you're going to be a parent soon, if you're a conservative, if you're a progressive, if you're Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, if you're anorexic...

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Google knows where you are:

7. Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you, I've requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB BIG, which is roughly 3 MILLION Word documents https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

8. https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk This link includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you've taken on your phone, the businesses you've bought from, the products you've bought through Google...

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

9. Your calendar, your Google hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google books you've purchased, the Google groups you're in, the websites you've created, the phones you've owned, the pages you've shared, how many steps you walk in a day...

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Your Data Is Enough to Fill About 400,000 Word Documents

10. Facebook offers a similar option to download all your information, mine was roughly 600mb, which is roughly 400,000 Word documents

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

11. This includes every message you've ever sent or been sent, every file you've ever sent or been sent, all the contacts in your phone, and all the audio messages you've ever sent or been sent pic.twitter.com/H8ng7bcyod

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

12. Facebook also stores what it think you might be interested in based off the things you've liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic 'Girl') pic.twitter.com/fqKiNlfATO

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Facebook Knows Every App Connected to Your Facebook Account... Like Tinder

13. Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you've ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this, it's just a joke at this stage) pic.twitter.com/4F5sExbynf

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

14. They also store every time you log into Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device pic.twitter.com/iWXSPm5Peh

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

15. And they store all the applications you've ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I'm interested in politics and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got a HTC phone in November... pic.twitter.com/bkXruVZxLP

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

They Have Access to Your Webcam & Mic

16. Side-note, if you have Windows 10 installed, this is a picture of JUST the privacy options with 16 different sub-menus, which have all of the options enabled by default when you install Windows 10 pic.twitter.com/oHyfYndTnJ

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

17. This includes tracking where you are, what applications you have installed, when you use them, what you use them for, access to your webcam and microphone at any time, your contacts, your e-mails, your calendar, your call history, the messages you send and receive...

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

18. The files you download, the games you play, your photos and videos, your music, your search history, your browsing history, even what RADIO stations you listen to

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Yep, They Know What Images You Download

19. This is one of the craziest things about the modern age, we would never let the government or a corporation put cameras/microphones in our homes or location trackers on us, but we just went ahead and did it ourselves because fuck it I want to watch cute dog videos

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

20. I got the Google Takeout document with all my information, and this is a breakdown of all the different ways they get your information pic.twitter.com/mPAbyh1I9k

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

21. Here's the search history document, which has 90,000 different entries, even showing the images I downloaded and the websites I accessed (I showed ThePirateBay section to show much damage this information can do) pic.twitter.com/rZJhJjSe2t

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

22. Here's my Google Calendar broken down, showing all the events I've ever added, whether I actually attended them, and what time I attended them at (this part is what I went for an interview for a Marketing job, and what time I arrived at) pic.twitter.com/mpB7NpLVzT

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

23. This is my Google Drive, which includes files I EXPLICITLY deleted including my resume, my monthly budget, and all the code, files, and websites I've ever made, and even my PGP private key, which I deleted, which I use to encrypt e-mails pic.twitter.com/UpfUNTD6yR

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

24. This is my Google Fit, which shows all of the steps I've ever taken, any time I walked anywhere, and all the times I've recorded any meditation/yoga/workouts I've done (I deleted this information and revoked Google Fit's permissions) pic.twitter.com/mAYmk8zxwR

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

25. This is all the photos ever taken with my phone, broken down by year, and includes metadata of when and where I took the photos pic.twitter.com/hBuClVijZv

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

26. Every e-mail I've ever sent, that's been sent to me, including the ones I deleted or were categorised as spam pic.twitter.com/mbUOlu6KXN

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

27. And now my Google Activity, this has thousands of files, so I'll just do a short summary of what they have pic.twitter.com/jucdjpQAVY

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

You might find the truth a little disturbing...

This interview got a HUGE reaction - @iamdylancurran, a web developer from Waterford, joined us with the lowdown.https://t.co/2RAutkE8mX

— Today FM (@TodayFM) March 27, 2018

28. Firstly every Google Ad I've ever viewed or clicked on, every app I've ever launched or used and when I did it, every website I've ever visited and what time I did it at, and every app I've ever installed or searched for pic.twitter.com/DcMdnbzuC6

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

29. Every image I've ever searched for and saved, every location I've ever searched for or clicked on, every news article I've ever searched for or read, and EVERY SINGLE google search I've made since 2009 pic.twitter.com/xPOK8h3qej

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

30. And then finally, every YouTube video I've ever searched for or viewed, since 2008 pic.twitter.com/0F1Lcwp2FS

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

31. I'm probably on an FBI watch-list now, so if I die in the next few months IT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT, IT WAS A SET-UP

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

32. This information has millions of nefarious uses and violates multiple human rights, you're not a terrorist? Then how come you were googling ISIS? Work at Google and you're suspicious of your wife? Perfect, just look up her location and search history for the last ten years

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

33. Manage to gain access to someone's Google account? Perfect, you have a chronological diary of everything that person has done for the last ten years

— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018

Still think your personal data stays ‘personal’?