This thread went viral because it really did freak people out
Senior software engineer Dylan Curran went to the trouble of offering a layman’s guide to how much data the likes of Google and Facebook keep on us, helpfully providing a few examples along the way.
He said it would freak you out, and it really, really will.
At the risk of getting too technical for a moment, this is just completely nuts.
1.
1. https://t.co/1z255Zt1zf Google stores your location (if you have it turned on) every time you turn on your phone, and you can see a timeline from the first day you started using Google on your phone
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
2.
2. This is every place I have been in the last twelve months in Ireland, going in so far as the time of day I was in the location and how long it took me to get to that location from my previous one pic.twitter.com/I1kB1vwntT
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
3.
3. https://t.co/qFCgY6QLN5 Google stores search history across all your devices on a separate database, so even if you delete your search history and phone history, Google STILL stores everything until you go in and delete everything, and you have to do this on all devices
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
4.
4. https://t.co/QRfgwkNj80 Google creates an advertisement profile based on your information, including your location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lbs in one day?) and income
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
5.
5. Google stores information on every app and extension you use, how often you use them, where you use them, and who you use them to interact with (who do you talk to on facebook, what countries are you speaking with, what time you go to sleep at) https://t.co/RJeRlXhtdq
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
6.
6. https://t.co/5B6qxUvrJz Google stores ALL of your YouTube history, so they know whether you’re going to be a parent soon, if you’re a conservative, if you’re a progressive, if you’re Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, if you’re feeling depressed or suicidal, if you’re anorexic…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
7.
7. Google offers an option to download all of the data it stores about you, I’ve requested to download it and the file is 5.5GB BIG, which is roughly 3 MILLION Word documents https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
8.
8. https://t.co/3Na4FxjNXk This link includes your bookmarks, emails, contacts, your Google Drive files, all of the above information, your YouTube videos, the photos you’ve taken on your phone, the businesses you’ve bought from, the products you’ve bought through Google…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
9.
9. Your calendar, your Google hangout sessions, your location history, the music you listen to, the Google books you’ve purchased, the Google groups you’re in, the websites you’ve created, the phones you’ve owned, the pages you’ve shared, how many steps you walk in a day…
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
10.
10. Facebook offers a similar option to download all your information, mine was roughly 600mb, which is roughly 400,000 Word documents
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
11.
11. This includes every message you’ve ever sent or been sent, every file you’ve ever sent or been sent, all the contacts in your phone, and all the audio messages you’ve ever sent or been sent pic.twitter.com/H8ng7bcyod
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
12.
12. Facebook also stores what it think you might be interested in based off the things you’ve liked and what you and your friends talk about (I apparently like the topic ‘Girl’) pic.twitter.com/fqKiNlfATO
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
13.
13. Somewhat pointlessly, they also store all the stickers you’ve ever sent on Facebook (I have no idea why they do this, it’s just a joke at this stage) pic.twitter.com/4F5sExbynf
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
14.
14. They also store every time you log into Facebook, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device pic.twitter.com/iWXSPm5Peh
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018
15.
15. And they store all the applications you’ve ever had connected to your Facebook account, so they can guess I’m interested in politics and web and graphic design, that I was single between X and Y period with the installation of Tinder, and I got a HTC phone in November… pic.twitter.com/bkXruVZxLP
— Dylan Curran (@iamdylancurran) March 24, 2018