In light of the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, social media users are thinking once more about their online privacy, or the lack thereof.

According to former contractor, Christopher Wylie, the data analytics firm used personal information harvested without permission from over 50 million Facebook users to build a system that targeted American voters with personalised political advertisements based on their psychological profiles. What was more worrying to everyday social media users, however, was the fact that Facebook had known about the data breach since 2015, but only suspended the firm, and the Cambridge university researcher who was involved, after the matter became a public scandal last month.

Since then, an erstwhile Facebook manager has stepped forward to warn users that hundreds of millions of profiles are likely to have had their "confidential" information used by private companies in a similar manner. Unsurprisingly, people are now wondering just how much data platforms such as Facebook and Google have on them. And the answer, it appears, is even more worrying than what we may have first presumed.

Technical consultant and web developer, Dylan Curran, took to Twitter to share findings about how much information Facebook and Google store "without you even realising it", and it's going to make you want to shut down your laptop, stat.
1. Google keeps a record of your location everytime you switch on your phone

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977561752849338370]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977562253594648578]]

Well, there you have it folks. It appears that Big Brother is very much watching.

In light of the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, social media users are thinking once more about their online privacy, or the lack thereof.

According to former contractor, Christopher Wylie, the data analytics firm used personal information harvested without permission from over 50 million Facebook users to build a system that targeted American voters with personalised political advertisements based on their psychological profiles. What was more worrying to everyday social media users, however, was the fact that Facebook had known about the data breach since 2015, but only suspended the firm, and the Cambridge university researcher who was involved, after the matter became a public scandal last month.

Since then, an erstwhile Facebook manager has stepped forward to warn users that hundreds of millions of profiles are likely to have had their "confidential" information used by private companies in a similar manner. Unsurprisingly, people are now wondering just how much data platforms such as Facebook and Google have on them. And the answer, it appears, is even more worrying than what we may have first presumed.

Technical consultant and web developer, Dylan Curran, took to Twitter to share findings about how much information Facebook and Google store "without you even realising it", and it's going to make you want to shut down your laptop, stat.
1. Google keeps a record of your location everytime you switch on your phone

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977561752849338370]]

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977562253594648578]]

Well, there you have it folks. It appears that Big Brother is very much watching.