Electronic collusion: Facebook harvests your highly sensitive personal info with help from dozens of popular apps

At least eleven popular apps are working with Facebook to harvest your highly sensitive personal information. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, this has been occurring covertly, without user consent. It has been happening to people who do not even have a Facebook account.

According to the investigation, Facebook is gathering information about your ovulation cycle, your pregnancy status, your heart rate, and the intimate details about your future home purchases. Apps such as Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker and Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor have been gathering sensitive information about your health, including height, weight, blood pressure, menstruation cycles, and so much more.

Popular apps are sending highly sensitive health information to Facebook

As soon as the app gathers the “highly sensitive information” from you, they send a copy to Facebook. Facebook, as you know, compiles and analyzes every bit of information they have collected about you to send you targeted ads. These targeted ads play upon your likes and dislikes, your needs and wants to take advantage of you. Your data is also used to “improve your experience on Facebook” by manipulating your news feed and searches.

Facebook automatically collects data from these apps because they designed it to work this way. App developers use the open source software tools provided by Facebook’s Software Development Kit. In exchange for the free tools, Facebook gets access to the data that these apps collect. According to the investigation, at least six popular apps were sending highly sensitive personal health information to Facebook.

These apps include:

Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor logs people’s heart rate and sends it to Facebook, keeping a detailed analog of user’s cardiovascular status.

Breathe Inc. sent information linking people’s email addresses to the type of meditations they preferred. This information is analyzed by Facebook to understand a facet of how people’s minds work.

BetterMe recorded user’s height and weight and sent it off to Facebook as soon as these personal details were entered into the app.

Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker gathered sensitive data on women’s menstrual cycles and learned about their intentions to get pregnant.

Realtor.com sent location data, listing prices, property IDs viewed, and properties that users marked as “favorites.” The information is then analyzed by Facebook to understand user preferences for future home purchases or rental choices.

(Related: Facebook attorneys admit in court there’s NO privacy on its platform … Users surveiled, tracked and spied on without boundaries or limitations.)

Apps give users an illusion of control over their personal information

The investigators who uncovered this privacy breach worked with a privacy software company to track when and where the apps transmitted internet communications. Out of seventy apps studied, eleven transmitted data to Facebook and in some instances, the transfer occurred immediately after the app gathered the data.

The apps give users the illusion of control over their personal data. The app’s privacy agreements let users choose whether the app can collect data from their electronic device, such as location, contacts, or cookies, but any information collected by the app can be scooped up and sent to third parties such as Facebook. Facebook can then do whatever they want with the siphoned data. Facebook compiles data from several sources and has a detailed psychological profile on all their users and even non-users. This compiled data is analyzed by algorithms to understand how each person thinks, learns, reads, votes, searches, and purchases.

To learn more what Facebook and other tech monopolies are up to, visit BigTech.News.

Sources include:

Dailymail.co.uk

Longroom.com

BigTech.News