The Secret Facebook Terms And Conditions You Definitely Didn’t Read

Do you remember the last time you read the small print? It's way easier to close those 'Terms and Conditions' pop ups and hurry your way into a vague contract with a service provider than it is to actually take the time to read what it all means. But in light of the colossal shit storm that Facebook is currently facing after those Cambridge Analytica investigations, it might be time to revisit the things we incidentally agreed to all that time ago.

Many of us have had a sneaky suspicion that Facebook is gathering lots of data about us for a while now. From those weird moments when you'll have vaguely mentioned wanting learn a new language and moments later seeing ads for Babble and DuoLingo pop up in your feed, to those too-close-to-home friend suggestions; we've been a bit concerned about how much Facebook can actually listen in on our lives. But that doesn't mean that reports of Facebook's storing of our texts and phone calls was taken lightly.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people have been downloading the data that Facebook has of them (just go to facebook.com/settings on your desktop and you'll be able to download from there) and noticed logs of phone calls, text messages and contact details of people they've had exchanges with away from the Facebook app.

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Much of this stems from agreeing to upload your contact information at the same time as creating an account (it's the default Facebook likes to use, not that we understand why), but in investigating it a little bit, there's a whole lot more that Facebook can access (and modify) on your smartphone. Full warning: it seems that Android users are most vulnerable to this weird data access.

Here's Some Of The Scary Stuff You Agreed To When You Created A Facebook Account

Here's what we found when we sat and went though the Facebook Terms and Conditions you're presented with before creating a new account, and their full Data Policy.

1. Accessing Your Contacts

When you sign up, by default you'll be prompted to create your account and upload your database of contacts at the same time but you don't have to. Beneath the sign up button you're given the option of signing up without uploading any of your contacts (we'd recommend this if you want to make the creepy suggested friends algorithm work a bit harder for it's access).

2. Sharing your content

Subject to how you've set your app and privacy settings, you'll have agreed to give Facebook a 'non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensably, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook'. Obviously, that agreement ends whenever you take down a picture but that's only if one of your mates hasn't shared it and kept it up on Facebook too.

3. Monitoring your behaviour

Worried about how much Facebook knows and how it finds all of that information? Well, it comes from pretty much anything you do with or in relation to the app - even in the most indirect of ways. The data policy says: 'We collect the content and other information that you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others'. So, yeah. Every which way you do anything on your phone, Facebook can probably learn more about you.

It continues: 'This can include information in or about the content you provide, such as the location of a photo or the date a file was created. We also collect information about how you use our Services such as the types of content you view or engage with or the frequency and duration of your activities.' Of course, all of this information can also be gathered from anyone who tags you in a photo or mentions you in a comment.

4. Storing your banking details

Have you ever purchased anything through Facebook? Or perhaps you've been playing a game that's required you to pay a few quid for extra coins? Or maybe you use Facebook Market place? If so Facebook may have your payment information. It says that 'if you use our Services for purchases or financial transactions (e.g. when you buy something on Facebook, make a purchase in a game or make a donation), we collect information about the purchase or transaction. This includes your payment information, such as your credit or debit card number and other card information, and other account and authentication information, as well as billing, shipping and contact details.'

5. And the rest

If you use a website that interacts with Facebook 'e.g. when they offer our Like button or Facebook Log In or use our measurement and advertising services', Facebook will also be collecting information about the websites/apps you visit. Then there's also other Facebook companiesincluding Instagram, Whatsapp, Occulus and Crowd Tangle.

This Is Everything Facebook Can Access On Your Smartphone

If you have an Android phone, you should be able to access all of this information via settings (which we explain below), but here's a full and comprehensive breakdown of what access Facebook might have and, brace yourself, it's pretty frightening.

Read calendar events and details

‘This app can read all calendar events stored on your phone and share or save your calendar data’

Add or modify calendar events and send emails to guests without owners’ knowledge

‘This app can add, remove or change calendar events on your phone. This app can send messages that may appear to come from calendar owners or change events without notifying their owners’

Take pictures and videos

‘This app can take pictures and record videos using the camera at any time’.

Read your contacts

‘Allows the app to read data about your contacts stored on your phone including the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed or communicated in other ways with specific individuals. This permission allows app to save your contact data, and malicious apps may share contact data without your knowledge.’

Modify your contacts

‘Allows the app to modify the data about your contacts stored on your phone, inclusing the frequency with which you’ve called, emailed ot communicated in other ways with specific contacts. This permission allows apps to delete contact data.’

Find accounts on the device

‘Allows the app to get the lost of accounts known by the phone. This may include any accounts created by applications that you have installed.’

Access approximate location (network-based)

‘This app can get your location based on network sources such as phone masts and Wi-Fi networks. These location services must be turned on and available on your phone for the app to use them.’

Access precise location (GPS and network-based)

‘This app can get your location based on GPS or network location sources such as phone masts and WI-Fi networks. These location servuces must be tuend on and availbale on your phone for the app to be able to use them. This may increase battery consumption.

Record audio

‘This app can record audio using the microphone at any time.’

**Read your text messages (SMS or MMS) **

‘This app can read all SMS (text) messages stored on your phone.’

Modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

‘Allows the app to write to the USB storage.’

Read the contents of your USB storage

‘Allows the app to read the contents of your USB storage.’

Read phone status and identity

‘Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. This permission allows the app to determine the phone number and device IDs, whether a calls is active and the remote number connected by a call’.

Other

How To Find Facebook Permissions On Your Phone

The thing that's a bit shady is that within the Facebook app itself, when you go through the privacy settings associated with your accounts, the access and protection you're able to update is mainly orientated around what the outside world can see of you. For example, you can change who can see posts your tagged in and those rogue, revealing status updates you made back in 2008.

To find out what Facebook can access on your phone (as in, everything beyond the app itself) you need to go into your phone's settings, scroll down to your list off installed apps select it from there. If you use an iPhone, you'll see a permission screen that looks a bit like these below and you'll have the ability to toggle the basic data access on and off:

If you use an Android phone however, you're able to deep dive a little further and read up on what exactly Facebook is doing when you're not even using the app. If you go to 'Permissions' and the use the three dot menu button at the top of the screen, you'll be given a full list like the one above of all the nitty gritty that extends beyond giving Facebook access to your calendar, microphone and camera, for example:

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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.