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Content Type: Call to Action
You might have read our investigation into advertisers who upload your data on Facebook and found out some companies doing the same to you. Well, you can join us and hold them accountable by sending your own Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)!
Before you get started we suggest you read our FAQ and take a look at our 7+1 tips to make the most out of your DSAR before and after.
To do so you simply need to copy the message bellow and send it to the companies that uploaded your data…
Content Type: Report
Back in October 2019, PI started investigating advertisers who uploaded personal data to Facebook for targeted advertising purposes. We decided to take a look at "Advertisers Who Uploaded a Contact List With Your Information", a set of information that Facebook provides to users about advertisers who upload files containing their personal data (including unique identifier such as phone numbers, emails etc...). Looking at the limited and often inaccurate information provided by Facebook through…
Content Type: Examples
In January 2019, Facebook announced that as of February 28 the site would add more information to that displayed when users click on the "Why am I seeing this?" button that appears next to ads on the service. Along with the brand that paid for the ad, some of the biographical details they'd targeted, and whether they'd uploaded the user's contact information, Facebook would also show when the contact information was uploaded, whether it was by the brand or one of their partners, and when access…
Content Type: News & Analysis
In December 2018, we revealed how some of the most widely used apps in the Google Play Store automatically send personal data to Facebook the moment they are launched. That happens even if you don't have a Facebook account or are logged out of the Facebook platform (watch our talk at the Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) in Leipzig or read our full legal analysis here).
Today, we have some good news for you: we retested all the apps from our report and it seems as if we…
Content Type: Examples
In July 2014, a study conducted by Adam D. I. Kramer (Facebook), Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock (both Cornell University) and published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences alerted Facebook users to the fact that for one week in 2012 689,003 of them had been the subjects of research into "emotional contagion". In the study, the researchers changed randomly selected users' newsfeeds to be more positive or negative to study whether those users then displayed a more…
Content Type: Examples
Users downloading their Facebook histories have been startled to find that the company has been collecting call and SMS data. The company has responded by saying users are in control of what's uploaded to Facebook. However, the company also says it's a widely used practice when users first sign in on their phones to a messaging or social media app to begin by uploading the phone's contact list. That data then becomes part of the company's friend recommendation algorithm. On versions of Android…
Content Type: Examples
In 2016, Facebook and its photo-sharing subsidiary Instagram rolled out a new reporting tool that lets users anonymously flag posts that suggest friends are threatening self-harm or suicide. The act of flagging the post triggers a message from Instagram to the user in question offering support including access to a help line and suggestions such as calling a friend. These messages are also triggered if someone searches the service for certain terms such as "thinspo", which is associated with…