Google and Facebook know almost everything a smartphone owner does online or offline and store the information even if the owner deletes the data on the device, a technical consultant and web developer has written on his Twitter account.
"Want to freak yourself out?," wrote Dylan Curran. "I'm gonna show just how much of your information the likes of Facebook and Google store about you without you even realising it."
Here is a selection of points from Curran's list:
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. https://www.google.com/maps/timeline
Facebook logged SMS texts and phone calls without explicitly notifying users | Technology | The Guardian
Facebook logged SMS texts and phone calls without explicitly notifying users
Users complain of phone and text data collected by the company despite never having agreed to practice
Alex Hern and agencies
@alexhern
Thu 29 Mar 2018 15.36 BST Last modified on Thu 29 Mar 2018 22.00 BST
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Facebook issued a ‘Fact Check’, in which the company repeatedly noted ‘people have to expressly agree to use this feature’ and ‘uploading this information has always been opt-in only’. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Facebook began logging the text messages and phone calls of its users before it explicitly notified them of its practice, contradicting the company’s earlier claims that “uploading this information has always been opt-in only”.
In at least one previous version of the Messenger app, Facebook only told users that the setting would enable them to “send and receive SMS in Messenger”, and presented the option to users without an obvious way to opt out: the prompt offered a big blue button reading “OK”, and a much smaller grey link to “settings”.
Nowhere in the opt-in dialogue was it made clear that text histories would be uploaded to Facebook’s servers and stored indefinitely.
Documents shared by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie spell out how parent company SCL Group tried to influence elections worldwide.
One letter also refers to its support of 15 psychological operations involving the UK's Ministry of Defence as of January 2012.
The Foreign Office is quoted as saying another part of SCL was "a joy to work with" on a counter-terror operation.
The files also refer to work done for Ambassador Bolton on US votes.
This appears to be a reference to John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN. He was recently appointed as President Trump's National Security Adviser.
The Guardian had previously reported on his involvement in a Cambridge Analytica experiment to target YouTube videos at profiled US voters.
The political consultancy is in the spotlight after reports that it amassed the data of millions of Facebook users without their consent and used this in political campaigns.
The firm has said that it "destroyed" the information when Facebook demanded, although Channel 4 News has reported that copies of at least part of the trove are still in circulation.
"We take allegations of unethical practices in the past by our former global (non-US) political consultancy very seriously, and they are currently the subject of a full and independent investigation which we have instigated to establish the facts," said Cambridge Analytica in a statement it published on Tuesday.
"Its findings will be made available in due course."
'International experience'
The files were released by the UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
They detail some of the work undertaken by Cambridge Analytica and companies it has been linked with, including SCL Group, Global Science Research and Aggregate IQ.
Mr Wylie had referred to several of the documents in his appearance before the committee on Monday.
In one document, SCL said that encouraging people "not to vote" might be more effective than trying to motivate swing voters.
Describing its work in a Nigerian election, SCL Global said it had advised that "rather than trying to motivate swing voters to vote for our clients, a more effective strategy might be to persuade opposition voters not to vote at all".
'Ethnic tensions'
Image copyrightAFPImage captionChristopher Wylie worked with Cambridge Analytica
It said this had been achieved by "organising anti-election rallies on the day of polling in opposition strongholds" and using "local religious figures to maximise their appeal especially among the spiritual, rural communities".
It boasted of devising a political graffiti campaign to create a youth "movement" in Trinidad and Tobago and of disseminating "campaign messages that, whilst ostensibly coming the youth, were unattributable to any specific party". It said as a result "a united youth movement was created".
In Latvia, it said it had recognised that "unspoken ethnic tensions" were "at the heart of the election".
"The locals secretly blamed the Russians for stealing their jobs... armed with this knowledge, SCL was able to reflect these real issues in its client's messaging," the document said.
The files spell out how SCL helped the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office "in strategic planning to counter violent jihadism" in Pakistan.
"I wouldn't only recommend them, I'd work with them again in an instant," wrote an official, whose name has been redacted.
Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. An official said they would have ‘no hesitation in inviting SCL to tender for further contracts’. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA
SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s predecessor, had access to secret UK information and was singled out for praise by the UK Ministry of Defence for the training it provided to a psychological operations warfare group, according to documents newly released by MPs.
An endorsement from an official at the 15 UK Psychological Operations Group dated January 2012 concluded that they would “have no hesitation in inviting SCL to tender for further contracts of this nature”.
The Section 377 law made it an offence to engage in "unacceptable carnal desire'' to deter sex without the intention of children, however, prosecution focused on the LGBT community. Getty
In a landmark ruling, India’s Supreme Court has confirmed an individual’s right to privacy – including sexual orientation – under the country’s constitution.
The ruling on August 24 offers new hope for the LGBTQ+ community in India, still living under the homophobic legacy of the British Empire which criminalised same-sex relationships.
A formal judgement on the law, known as Section 377, is still pending and the hope is that the court will repeal this toxic colonial hangover.
Mapping for Change works to provide benefit to individuals and communities from disadvantaged or marginalised groups, along with the organisations and networks that support those communities, where the goal is to create positive sustainable transformations in their environment. We also support individuals from the aforementioned groups to gain access to higher education at UCL, to study fields connected with our work.
Our Vision
A future in which communities are empowered, sustainable and resilient.
Our Mission
To empower individuals and communities to make a difference to their local area through the use of mapping and geographical information.
Our Aim
To deliver maps and techniques which enable any organisation, group or enterprise to make a change and improve their environments.
senior writer at Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. His new piece, just out today, is titled “Hidden Figures: How Donald Trump Is Rigging the Census.”
A new battle is brewing over the 2020 U.S. census. At least 12 states are moving to sue the Trump administration over plans to add a question about citizenship to the upcoming census. Voting rights activists fear the question will deter immigrants from participating in the census, leading to a vast undercount in states with large immigrant communities. This could impact everything from the redrawing of congressional maps to the allocation of federal funding. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the decision to add a citizenship question was “necessary for the Department of Justice to protect voters.” At least five former directors of the Census Bureau, who served under Republican and Democratic presidents, have written a letter opposing the citizenship question.
In this episodeAditya Chakrabortty speaks to Ande Gregson of Green Lab – a makerspace in London – about how small-scale creators can keep an economy robust and innovative. Green Lab is a manufacturing site where innovators can come together, spreading the cost of rent, to develop projects that respond to the global food crisis.
![A technical consultant probes data Facebook and Google have on him [Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/3/29/36780825fb4745b88f0c4c43550a23d9_18.jpg "What Google and Facebook know about you")
