Social security is the most talked about topic right now. Increasingly, world over, people are concerned about the safety of their personal data and the usage of it in wrong hands.
The recent controversies involving the use or rather the misuse of personal data by social media giant Facebook, including discovery that Facebook was storing user’s call and text logs though its Messenger app. These incidents have led people focus on how much and the kind of information that they are feeding to internet sites and its privacy.
Dylan Curran who goes by the Twitter handle @iamdylancurran broke down all the information stored by Google and Facebook. Google’s ecosystem extends not only to Search, but across different products such as Maps, YouTube, Photos, Gmail, Contacts and more.
Google Maps
You can click on this link to check your activity on Google Maps. Here, you will see a timeline showing all the places you’ve visited the most. You can check your travel route for a specific day, month or year. Google’s records for Maps start from 2009.
Google My Activity
Clicking on this link will take you to Google’s ‘My Activity’ page. This is more of a detailed history page for all your activity on Google Chrome. The websites and pages visited. Although, this activity can be accessed only by the individual; it also reflects deleted data from Chrome.
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Google Ads
The perfect marketing tool! Ever wondered how you search for a product online and then start getting related links flashing all over your accounts. This is because, every click of yours is getting mapped to provide relevant information. This page will show you how Google personalises these based on your usage behaviour and pattern.
Apps and services
Here, you’ll find all the apps and services you have given permission to, that can access your Google account. After knowing this, you can either continue with the permissions that you have already given or revoke some accesses, if the need be. It also reflects the period when the access was granted to each app.
Google Takeout
You can also download the above-mentioned information through this link. Google Takeout lets you create an archive of all your data. Dylan highlights that his downloaded archive contains intricate information like the Google Groups you’re a member of, music you listen to, and pages you’ve shared.
You will find this feature under the ‘Settings’ menu on Facebook. Facebook warns that this archive will contain “sensitive info like your private Wall posts, photos and profile information”. After entering your password, Facebook will start downloading the zipped file. Here, you’ll find folders of html files, photos, messages, and videos.
Certainly, room for much thought! Although social media giants assure that the data is accessible only by the concerned individual; yet the prospect of having everything out in the open can be a scary proposition.