Lately you may have seen the term shadow profiles popping up in the tech news. What are shadow profiles? Are they real? Are they bad? If you are a Facebook user then the answer to all of these is yes.
We will examine this closer to try and shed a little light on the subject.
On June 21st Facebook released some embarrassing news. The accounts of more than six million users were compromised and the email addresses and phone numbers were leaked. Facebook tried to downplay the leak but it soon became apparent that many of the leaked emails and phone numbers had not been shared by the users with Facebook.
The information had been collected by Facebook and stored in shadowy vaults along with a large amount of information that you never knew Facebook collected. This information, collectively, is known as your shadow profile.
Every Facebook user has a shadow profile. It contains information that you would suspect Facebook has. Your name, interests, and relationship status. Additionally, it has stealthily collected information that you never even shared.
They have collected this information by scanning through your friends list and even friends of friends. Anyone who has allowed Facebook to scan their phone contacts through their find friends feature. Facebook even provided the following disclaimer.
“Find Friends uploads contacts from your device and stores them on Facebook’s servers where they may be used to help others search for people or to generate friend suggestions for you and others.”
There is some evidence that Facebook has even created shadow profiles for non-users. The company has denied collecting information on non-Facebook users.
There may be some cause for concern because Facebook has recently been shown as one of the nine companies who made a deal with the NSA to turn over information about its users. Your information is for sale and the government is bidding.