Shadow Profiles are shady, and you certainly don't want to be in the dark
Have you ever longed to fill your Facebook roster in one fell swoop using something like the 'Find My Friends' feature, which will take a look through all of your contacts and try to find them on Facebook based on the information you have on them? Such as name, phone number, email address, etc? It looks a little something like this:
Here it is, but wait don't try it!
As convenient as this feature is, there is something we all need to know: this is a way for Facebook to harvest information on every person it can get its hands on.
Facebook has something called Shadow Profiles. A shadow profile contains information on you that your friends voluntarily provide when they use the Find My Friends service, which scans through the contacts in a person's phone or email and takes everything you have on your contacts. This will of course contain the information that you make public, but it can also take any other information, such as a home address or a second email address, or anything that you don't actually make public, and store it into your shadow profile.
One important thing to note here is that this isn't just for Facebook users. Any person that is listed in your contacts gets a shadow profile, whether they actively use Facebook or have never used it at all.
This information only came to the public eye after a bug released information for over 6 million users. Some people who used the Facebook Download Your Information tool could see all the information that Facebook had been gathering, as well as information their friends had voluntarily put up. Evidently they had been doing this for many years, and while the bug that leaked the information has been fixed this hasn't stopped them from continuing to do it.
It should be mentioned that all of your publicly given information is subject to data-mining, archiving, and whatnot by Facebook. The real concern is that with the shadow profiles, users have absolutely no control over what gets harvested or what can be done with that information. They even mention in their privacy policy (which no one reads) their policy on harvesting data from your actions on Facebook.
"We receive information about you from your friends and others, such as when they upload your contact information, post a photo of you, tag you in a photo or status update, or at a location, or add you to a group. When people use Facebook, they may store and share information about you and others that they have, such as when they upload and manage their invites and contacts.”
These shadow profiles don't necessarily contain anything especially harmful to those who have them, but it should be known that companies have the capability of harvesting this data without your knowledge. Be wise what kinds of pertinent information you share!
Facebook has something called Shadow Profiles. A shadow profile contains information on you that your friends voluntarily provide when they use the Find My Friends service, which scans through the contacts in a person's phone or email and takes everything you have on your contacts. This will of course contain the information that you make public, but it can also take any other information, such as a home address or a second email address, or anything that you don't actually make public, and store it into your shadow profile.
One important thing to note here is that this isn't just for Facebook users. Any person that is listed in your contacts gets a shadow profile, whether they actively use Facebook or have never used it at all.
This information only came to the public eye after a bug released information for over 6 million users. Some people who used the Facebook Download Your Information tool could see all the information that Facebook had been gathering, as well as information their friends had voluntarily put up. Evidently they had been doing this for many years, and while the bug that leaked the information has been fixed this hasn't stopped them from continuing to do it.
It should be mentioned that all of your publicly given information is subject to data-mining, archiving, and whatnot by Facebook. The real concern is that with the shadow profiles, users have absolutely no control over what gets harvested or what can be done with that information. They even mention in their privacy policy (which no one reads) their policy on harvesting data from your actions on Facebook.
"We receive information about you from your friends and others, such as when they upload your contact information, post a photo of you, tag you in a photo or status update, or at a location, or add you to a group. When people use Facebook, they may store and share information about you and others that they have, such as when they upload and manage their invites and contacts.”
These shadow profiles don't necessarily contain anything especially harmful to those who have them, but it should be known that companies have the capability of harvesting this data without your knowledge. Be wise what kinds of pertinent information you share!
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