How Facebook Records Your Phone Log & Message History – Exposed by Dylan McKay
- Salman Ahmed
- April 3rd, 2018
If you are already worked up about how Facebook records your activities, then it’s time to reveal one more thing which may definitely make you delete your account forever.
Recently, a person from New Zealand revealed that Facebook is not only recording data within the app, but it also stores your call log and message history as well.
Just after Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook provides the new feature for users to download their data history from account settings. When Dylan McKay downloaded his data from Facebook, he found something shocking
Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file
Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum pic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
Facebook Records Your Movement
If you are using Facebook app on your smartphone, then you are being tracked by Facebook! Yes, this is true. Even you don’t update on Facebook that you are traveling or attending some event, it still records your every moment!
When Dylan McKay downloaded his Facebook data, he found something creepy! Facebook recording his every movement with the address he stay and how he travelled.
daily tracking history with a breakdown of each address I stopped at and how I traveled pic.twitter.com/G7LQpAM3Ix
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 23, 2018
Facebook Records Your Metadata for Every Text Message
If you don’t use Messenger app to message your contacts, Facebook still records your message history in the form of metadata for each SMS you received and sent.
So you are not safe when even you are not using Messenger for messaging your friends because somehow Facebook records your SMS history as well.
In order to make you believe, check this tweet by Dylan McKay:
metadata about every text message I've ever received or sent
spoiler: I don't use messenger for SMS pic.twitter.com/ehWXhpnrrV
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
Facebook Records Overall Call-log History
Facebook not only records your message history, but it also records every call you make from your smart phone.
So, there is no way to make yourself safe! If you want to see how and in which pattern Facebook records your call-log history, then you should definitely see this tweet by Dylan McKay:
a historical record of every single contact on my phone, including ones I no longer have pic.twitter.com/XfiRX6qgHl
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
I've written a script to dump all cell records in the ZIP file and print statistics
Here is what it shows on my profile, pretty chilling
The Ruby script can be found at https://t.co/xiXj2ke7PI pic.twitter.com/jvutJoJ4Lc
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 22, 2018
Somebody else had this, really curious why some seem to get JSON files rather than ZIPs of HTML
@cstrat6 if you right click -> open with -> notepad, you should be able to see the data – won't be as readable though https://t.co/y4xP6uqM2t
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 24, 2018
Wrapping-up
Conditions are getting worse day by day for social media users as more things are coming into our knowledge related to how these tech giants are monitoring us.
If you are not using your Facebook app for calling and messaging, still you are not safe because they are also recording your call-log and SMS history as well.
There is no way from which you can stop these tech giants from recording your data. Although you can limit these tech giants by changing privacy settings.
If you still have any confusion or query, you can contact us by mentioning your comment below.
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