Collections
That’s one kind of ‘collection’ that can become both an annoyance and a detriment to your mental and fiscal well-being, but there are innumerable ‘other’ types of collection agencies that know more about you than you do. While we stare in horror at scenes of facial recognition systems in China identifying everyone crossing against the traffic lights in Beijing, we routinely allow detailed data collection every time we use social media. But it goes further, as we habitually agree to ‘Terms of Service” that allows companies to not only monitor everything you do on-line, but to add to that database information collected by almost any company affiliated with that application, meaning any on-line company that uses the Facebook (FB) Pixel application to collect data and monitor their website traffic.
We did a bit of digging to actually try to understand at least some of the data that we give access to when we use social media, in this case Facebook, but we expect such terms and privacy policies are similar for Google (GOOG) and other on-line applications. By agreeing to Facebook privacy policy you allow the company to collect information about any of the following:
- Information from your sign-up
- Any content you create
- Any content you share
- Any messages you send or receive
- Anything from the Facebook camera app, including being added to their facial recognition system, including people, places, accounts, tags, are groups you are connected with
- How you use content, including type of content, features used, actions, people, time, frequency of use, duration of use, including what posts, videos, content you view and any purchases or transactions you make including credit and debit card numbers, authentication information, billing and shipping addresses, and contracts you agree to
- Information that others provide about you, which can be from computers, phones, TV or other web devices
- Such external information can include device attributes, O/S, hardware & software versions, battery levels, signal strength, available storage, applications, file names, and mouse movements (!). Information about your Wi-Fi , nearby Wi-Fi networks, cell tower usage, mobile phone IP addresses is also included, although GPS, Camera, and Photo access can be limited if you choose the option
- Cookie data
- Information from partners that is collected by Facebook partners, even when off the Facebook application, including ‘likes’, ‘dislikes’, sites you visit, purchases you make and ads you see.
While this all might seem a paranoia fest, the US is particularly lax when it comes to personal information, especially when compared to the EU’s GPDR (General Data Protection Regulations) which force companies situated in or doing business in EU member countries to ask for more specific consent as to what they collect and what it is used for, with defaults limiting access to only basic information and operational cookies. With all the data being collected, the potential for you information to be misused, hacked, or sold is enormous, which could lead to problems that are almost impossible to correct or even discover, and the Meta-verse, if or when it becomes a reality, will just give such collection agencies even more data to collect. It was much harder to get purchaser information from brick and mortar retailers than it is to get it from on-line retailers. Just think of how easy that data will be to collect when you wander through hundreds of Meta-verse ‘universes’ or outfit your personal universe with all of those things you can’t afford or could never own in the real world.