The storm in which Facebook entered due to the privacy problems that arose with the Cambridge Analytica problem, the collection of personal data and profiling, used for commercial and electoral purposes by third-party companies, is certainly not over. In these days another discovery has aroused amazement and concern: the fact that the Facebook app on old Android smartphones has recorded SMS messages sent from the phone. It is true that the Messenger app asks the user for various permissions, including that of managing phone calls and messages, but another account is keeping them stored on his servers to manage advertising campaigns or internal experiments.
While this no longer happens on new Android smartphones, it is still possible that Facebook has captured personal data from our phone that we would not have liked to give it. It is possible to know what data Facebook has recorded about us by downloading the personal archive .
READ ALSO: Prevent Facebook from transferring data to external companies and applications
To download Facebook data, as already written in the past, just go to facebook.com/settings and click on the link below Download a copy .
On the following page, the request must be confirmed by entering the Facebook account password.
After a while you will receive an email with the confirmation of the request and a link where you can read more information on the type of data that will be downloaded. However, it will be necessary to wait a few hours before Facebook sends a second email with the download link of the archive in the form of a ZIP file. The ZIP file of the Facebook archive could be quite large depending on how much Facebook has been used during these years, with a large download even 200 or 300 MB if there are many photos and videos.
Once the ZIP file has been downloaded, right click on it to extract the archive to a folder. Inside this folder there is an index.htm file that starts the exploration of the data, organized by categories through a menu.
The most interesting and least discounted parts of this Facebook data archive are definitely:
- the contact info section, with all the numbers and email addresses of friends and any person we have dealt with.
- the Friends section, with the friends list, the friendships requested, the names of those who refused us, the friendships removed.
- Messages, with all the conversations and private messages exchanged with people via Messenger and Facebook chat, including voice messages.
- Advertisements, with information relating to advertising topics.
The Facebook data archive includes everything that has been registered by the site and by the application since we registered, both data that we entered, and those extracted from the smartphone. For example, thanks to Messenger, we can see how Facebook has recorded and saved our phone book on its servers and then also chats, private messages, searches made and the entire activity log, full of personal information.
From 2020 it is also possible to download and delete Facebook data collection activities from external sites
As for contacts, we have already seen how to delete contacts and shared numbers on Facebook.
While this no longer happens on new Android smartphones, it is still possible that Facebook has captured personal data from our phone that we would not have liked to give it. It is possible to know what data Facebook has recorded about us by downloading the personal archive .
READ ALSO: Prevent Facebook from transferring data to external companies and applications
To download Facebook data, as already written in the past, just go to facebook.com/settings and click on the link below Download a copy .
On the following page, the request must be confirmed by entering the Facebook account password.
After a while you will receive an email with the confirmation of the request and a link where you can read more information on the type of data that will be downloaded. However, it will be necessary to wait a few hours before Facebook sends a second email with the download link of the archive in the form of a ZIP file. The ZIP file of the Facebook archive could be quite large depending on how much Facebook has been used during these years, with a large download even 200 or 300 MB if there are many photos and videos.
Once the ZIP file has been downloaded, right click on it to extract the archive to a folder. Inside this folder there is an index.htm file that starts the exploration of the data, organized by categories through a menu.
The most interesting and least discounted parts of this Facebook data archive are definitely:
- the contact info section, with all the numbers and email addresses of friends and any person we have dealt with.
- the Friends section, with the friends list, the friendships requested, the names of those who refused us, the friendships removed.
- Messages, with all the conversations and private messages exchanged with people via Messenger and Facebook chat, including voice messages.
- Advertisements, with information relating to advertising topics.
The Facebook data archive includes everything that has been registered by the site and by the application since we registered, both data that we entered, and those extracted from the smartphone. For example, thanks to Messenger, we can see how Facebook has recorded and saved our phone book on its servers and then also chats, private messages, searches made and the entire activity log, full of personal information.
From 2020 it is also possible to download and delete Facebook data collection activities from external sites
As for contacts, we have already seen how to delete contacts and shared numbers on Facebook.
