Facebook

News & Analysis

Facebook's announcement that users will be able to opt-out from seeing political and issue-based ads leaves many important questions unanswered.

Call to Action

Ask advertisers why they have your data!

Some advertisers upload our personal data to target us on Facebook. Find the ones doing this for you and hold them into account!

Explainer

Here are a few suggested tips, based on our own experience with Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs). This is based on DSARs under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but we hope our tips may be useful in other jurisdictions too.

Long Read

Join us on a journey to try to solve the mystery behind the advertisers who have uploaded our personal data to Facebook but with whom we've never interacted with before.

Report

A PI investigation into advertisers we had never heard of who upload our personal data on Facebook to target us.

Long Read

Throughout these updates, we will do our best to avoid technical terms, obscure references or abstract discussions. We want you to be aware of how data power has grown and why we need to act. This post focuses on data and competition law developments in the UK.

Advocacy

In February 2020, PI submitted comments on the UK Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) interim report into online platforms and digital advertising.

Case Study

Everyone has the right to freely manifest their religion, to change it and to practice it alone or with others.

19 Mar 2020
Facebook's scientists are analysing location data about compliance with social distancing recommendations in various countries using information from a private vault of location information its apps have collected. The analysis shows that only "very modest" changes in habits in the US, France, and
05 Mar 2020
WhatsApp is being flooded with fake cures, false information about how the illness is transmitted, and coronavirus conspiracy theories, and has become a vector for spreading panic and misinformation around the world, particularly in countries such as Nigeria, Singapore, Brazil, Pakistan, and Ireland
17 Mar 2020
A task force at the Italian Ministry of Innovation, in collaboration with the University of Pavia to leverage big data technologies to deal with COVID-19, after the WHO advised governments that lockdowns alone are not enough, and that testing, isolation, and contact tracing are crucial. The effort
17 Mar 2020
A task force at the Italian Ministry of Innovation, in collaboration with the University of Pavia to leverage big data technologies to deal with COVID-19, after the WHO advised governments that lockdowns alone are not enough, and that testing, isolation, and contact tracing are crucial. The effort
05 Mar 2020
In a rare departure from personalisation, Facebook announced that it had begun inserting a box into its news feed directing users to the Centers for Disease Control’s page about COVID-19, potentially driving many millions of users to reliable information from an authoritative source. Facebook also
26 Feb 2020
Facebook announced on its blog that it was providing researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan with aggregated and anonymised mobility data and high resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models for the spread
26 Feb 2020
Facebook is providing researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan "aggregated and anonymized" mobility data and high resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models for the spread of the virus as part of our
Long Read

Facebook "Download Your Information" feature only gives you part of the picture. Information about advertisers uploading lists with your personal information is limited in time and prevents users from exercising their rights