As if we needed more proof that Facebook remembers everything a user does on its website, 24-year-old Max Schrems of Vienna, Austria asked Facebook for a copy of all the data the social network has on file for him and not surprisingly, he got back a CD with a whopping 1,222 PDFs documenting his every move.
According to Threatpost, Schrems discovered that Facebook kept on file even the most detailed of things such as when he logged in and out of Facebook:
Collected together were records of when Schrems logged in and out of the social network, the times and content of sent and received messages and an accounting of every person and thing he's ever liked, posted, poked, friended or recorded. The archive captured friend requests, former or alternative names and email addresses, employment and relationship statuses and photos, in some cases with their GPS locations included, to name a few.
Hell, even data that he thought he deleted from Facebook was sent over to him in PDF form. Keep in mind that Schrems lives in Europe, where he's allowed to legally request a copy of his digital data, before you start knocking on Mark Zuckerberg's door.
Also of importance to note is that the 1,222 PDFs is based on him and his 234 friends. Imagine how high that figure can balloon up to for people with even more friends. Believe it or not, I've seen people with over 1,000 "friends."
The Guardian says that in the U.K. and Ireland, Facebook "must send out a CD within 40 days" although the U.K, information commissioner's office says that the social network can also send the files "by email, or whatever format was the most convenient."
Schrems is now working on a project called Europe vs. Facebook that aims to improve and increase "transparency" between the social network and its users.
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Every single time something like this surfaces, I freak out at how much Facebook has on me. Even so, I go to sleep and wake up the next day ready to check Facebook first. I'm apt to believe that Zuckerberg might be right and that the age of privacy is really over. Seriously, 1,200 PDFs is way too much data to be keeping on us all.
Threatpost, via TNW
