Here’s Disturbing Proof That Facebook Knows Everything About You

A marketing stunt for a video game is allowing Facebook users to see firsthand how well their privacy settings are configured. It’s creepy.

The Ubisoft game “Watch Dogs” has a campaign on their site called “Digital Shadow.” I requests permission to access a user’s account – just like every other Facebook app you use. Once you grant permission, it pulls publicly accessible information to generate a preview of who you are. It is a marketing stunt for a video game, so it generates a dossier on you and acts as if you are an assassin’s target.

It generates a list of the people you interact with regularly, and divides them into different categories; pawns, stalkers, liabilities, obsessions, and scapegoats – depending on the nature of your interactions. It analyzes words you use most to make a generalized statement about your psychological well-being. Mine was “Depressive: displays a bleak outlook that can be used for future gain” thanks to my use of the words baby, miss, gun and hate.

It shows the frequency of the time you spend online and when you are connected most. It shows how much you are worth, age, education level – and in a really creepy twist, generates password attempts.

I know it’s just a marketing ploy, but if you are interested in seeing what your public digital footprint is on the most widely used social media platform in existence, it’s interesting to check out. Also, you can see how much of your child’s information can be easily mined.

The stunt ends with, ” Your data casts a digital shadow that grows with every interaction and can be tracked, monitored and used against you. Every photo. Every email. Every purchase. Everything you’ve ever done in the digital world can follow you into the real world. Your actions leave you exposed.”

Be right back – I have to go delete my Facebook profile.

(photo: digitalshadow.com)