Shadow profile

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A shadow profile is a collection of information pertaining to an application's users, or even some of its non-users, collected without their consent. [1] The term is most commonly used to describe the manner in which technological companies such as Facebook [2] collect information related to people who did not willingly provide it to them. [3]

Contents

Though controversial, this practice has been almost never prosecuted as its legality is being contested. [4]

History

In 2012, a data breach of over six million Facebook users' personal information indicated the existence of a number of shadow profiles, since the leaked information had not been provided by the users themselves. [5] Consequently, Facebook began linking users' shadow profiles to their respective public profiles.[ citation needed ] The combined profiles were then further shared with the users' friends if they used Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.[ ambiguous ][ citation needed ]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Garcia, David (August 2017). "Leaking privacy and shadow profiles in online social networks". Science Advances. 3 (8) e1701172. Bibcode:2017SciA....3E1172G. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1701172. ISSN   2375-2548. PMC   5544396 . PMID   28798961.
  2. ↑ Brandom, Russell (11 April 2018). "Shadow profiles are the biggest flaw in Facebook's privacy defense". The Verge. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
  3. ↑ Debatin, Bernhard; Lovejoy, Jennette P.; Horn, Ann-Kathrin; Hughes, Brittany N. (October 2009). "Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 15 (1): 83–108. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x . ISSN   1083-6101.
  4. ↑ "Shadow profiles: the data of others | campus.kn". www.campus.uni-konstanz.de. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
  5. ↑ Newton, Casey (April 12, 2018). "The data Facebook collects without permission". The Interface (Newsletter). Vox Media. Archived from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2020– via Revue.


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