How to Find Out Everything Facebook Knows About You
If you can’t bring yourself to completely delete your Facebook account , you’re probably thinking about sharing much less personal information on the site. The company actually makes it pretty easy to know how much data it has collected from you, but the results can be a little scary.
When software developer Dylan McKay went and downloaded all of his data from Facebook, he was shocked to find that the social network has timestamps on every phone call and SMS he has made over the past few years, although he says that does not use the app for calls or text messages. He even kept a journal of every conversation between McKay and his partner’s mom.
To get your own data dump, go to Facebook settings and click “Download a copy of your data” at the bottom of the page. It takes Facebook a little time to gather all this information, but from my own experience it should be ready in about 10 minutes. You will receive a notification that sends you to a page where you can download the data – of course after you re-enter your account password.
The file (probably huge) is downloaded to your computer as a ZIP archive. After extracting it, open a new folder and click “index.html” to view the data in a browser.
Don’t forget to check the Contact Info tab for a list of everyone you’ve ever known and their phone numbers (creepy, Facebook). You can also scroll down to the bottom of the Friends tab to see where Facebook thinks you are in your life – I got the Beginning of Adulthood.
McKay also installed a script on Github to parse the data for you, but even with the instructions included, it’s not the most user-friendly tool if you’re not already a competent coder. You’re probably better off doing the data analysis yourself – weekend entertainment, right?