Facebook has long order that it does n’t use location data to make friend hint , but that does n’t mean it has n’t thought about using it .
In 2014 , Facebook filed apatentapplication for a technique that employs smartphone data to figure out if two people might know each other . The author , an engineering coach at Facebook named Ben Chen , pen that it was not only possible to detect that two smartphones were in the same place at the same time , but that by comparing the accelerometer and gyroscope Reading of each phone , the data could discover when people were face each other or walk together . That way , Facebook could suggest you friend the person you were talking to at a streak last night , and not all the other people there that you choose not to talk to .
Facebook says it has n’t put this technique into practice .
Image by Jim Cooke
“ We ’re not currently using location [ for People You May have a go at it ] , ” said a Facebook voice . Facebook has antecedently tell apart us that it only used location for friend recommendations one time during abrief test in 2015 . But several of its patents show it thinking about using emplacement , also recommend user friend each other , for representative , if they “ check into the societal web from the same location at around the same time . ”
In the row of our year - long investigation into how the social mesh makes its uncannily accurate friend recommendation to users , Facebook has state us many thing it does n’t do , to ease fears about Facebook ’s ability to snoop on its users : It does n’t utilize proxy for placement , such as wi - fi networks or informatics destination . It does n’t use profile viewsor fount recognitionor who you text with on WhatsApp . Most of Facebook ’s uncanny guesswork is the result of a healthy percentage of userssimply handing over their address books .
But that does n’t intend Facebook has n’t thought about use users ’ metadata more strategically to make connections between them . Patents file by Facebook that mention masses You May Know show some clever methods that Facebook has excogitate for enter out that seeming strangers on the web might know each other . Onefiled in 2015describes a technique that would connect two people through the camera metadata associated with the photos they uploaded . It might put on two people knew each other if the images they uploaded looked like they were titled in the same series of photos—IMG_4605739.jpg and IMG_4605742 , for model — or if lens of the eye scratch up or dust were perceptible in the same spots on the photos , let on the photo were taken by the same television camera .
It would result in all the people you ’ve sent photos to , who then upload them to Facebook , showing up in one another ’s “ multitude You May Know . ” It ’d be a cracking way to meet the other citizenry who hired your wedding photographer .
“ We ’re also not analyzing images taken by the same television camera to make good word in People You May be intimate , ” say a Facebook spokesperson when asked about the patent . “ We ’ve often sought letters patent for technology we never implement , and patent of invention should not be take as an indicant of succeeding plans . ”
The technological analytic thinking in some of the patents is pretty astounding , but it could well be desirous cerebration on Facebook ’s part .
Vera Ranieri , an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on noetic attribute , has n’t reviewed these specific patent of invention but pronounce generally that the U.S. Patent Office does n’t check that a engineering in reality puzzle out before grant a patent .
“ A lot of patents are filed at the idea degree rather than the actuality stage , ” said Ranieri by sound . “ A tech company that files a letters patent has , hopefully , at least think about how to do it . You ’d go for they could carry out it if asked , but it does n’t mean they have done so before . ”
Since being born into the cosmos in 2004 , Facebook has filed for thousands of engineering science letters patent for lock down its intellectual prop and , like many in the field , stifle competition . In a search of those patents , we found a twelve , file from 2010 to 2016 , that were like a shot relevant to People You May do it , or PYMK as it ’s called internally . They admit proficiency that Facebook could use one Clarence Shepard Day Jr. to make friend suggestions — or techniques it could litigate someone else for using .
submit in their width , they talk to the many source of information Facebook could beg to learn more about us and our real - earth social networks , thanks in large part to the advanced surveillance tools built by default into our smartphones , such as accelerometer , gyrometers , mike , television camera , and interminable , sprawl contact al-Qur’an .
The Facebook employees and contractors who authored the patents repeatedly explain why hoi polloi You May Know is so crucial to the mesh : People with more ally expend the net more and look at more ad . Without hoi polloi You May Know , the $ 500 billion behemoth that is Facebook would be making less money . That may be why users are n’t allow for to opt out of the feature , even when itcarries risks for them .
“ For mass with down in the mouth friends counts — usually new to Facebook — we’ve heard that the hypnotism we put up aid them find more meshed , and we ’re go to proceed to seek to make these hypnotism as relevant as possible , ” allege the Facebook spokesperson by email . “ Concerning how People You May recognise work ; we prioritize suggestions based on reciprocal admirer because having friends in coarse is a good signal that you may want to be Friend with someone on Facebook . ”
Facebook’searliest People You May Know patentwas filed in 2010 , two age after Facebooklaunched the feature of speech . In it , employee from Facebook explain why admirer mesmerism are important :
“ Social networking systems value user connexion because better connected user run to habituate the societal networking organization more , thus increasing substance abuser engagement and supply a good exploiter experience . ”
In a letters patent filedtwo years later , employees on Facebook ’s growth squad explain why increased substance abuser engagement is so of import . It leads to “ a comparable increase in , for exercise , advertising opportunities . ”
In other words , People You May Know is crucial to Facebook ’s bottom line . Thus , Facebook ’s first PYMK patent was on the process of privileging friend testimonial for people who do n’t have very many friends . Another filingpatents the enactment of aggressively displaying “ People You May Know ” to masses who do n’t use Facebook very often .
Its 2nd letters patent was for something Facebook does n’t currently let you do : screen out its champion suggestion to you and rank them by hometown or act of mutual friends or their stake . ( If you ’re interested in actually being able to do that , tryour PYMK Inspector , which will allow you sort your friend suggestions by reciprocal friends . )
One of its patent of invention is for reckon out who your family phallus are and suggesting them as booster . It says it could figure this out based on “ extraneous feeds , third - political party database , etc . ” However , when Facebooksuggested I friend a relative I did n’t know I had , Facebook severalize me it does n’t utilise info from third parties or data brokers for People You May fuck .
While Facebook says it often seeks patents for technology it never implements , one affair Facebook is doing — and that it has filed multiple patent of invention on since 2012 because it works so well — isbuilding shadow profile to tie users . Facebook collects all the inter-group communication information it can regain for you from other user ’ savoir-faire books and then associates it with your account — though not in a home you could see or delete . It then uses that information to connect you with other drug user who have those physical contact deets for you . In patent of invention speak , this is “ Associating meet contact information with substance abuser profile stored by a societal networking system . ”
Here ’s how Facebook describes the cognitive operation offiguring out everyone you ’ve ever meet .
[ U]ser visibility may include uncompleted or outdated info , confine the societal networking system ’s power to identify other societal networking system users for connecting to an spell substance abuser . To more accurately key out users , the social networking organisation stores tangency debut receive from an importing substance abuser and associates a stored contact entrance with a user profile include entropy matching information in the contact entry . afterwards received impinging unveiling are compare to drug user profiles and stored contact lens first appearance associated with the user visibility to identify matching information . If information in a exploiter profile or in a stored contact lens entry associated with the drug user visibility equalize a receive contact entry , a user associated with the user profile is identified for establishing a connection . Associating received contact entries with exploiter profiles supplements user profiles with received message information , allowing identification of more possible connectedness to drug user and increasing drug user interaction with the social networking system .
And , of course , more exploiter fundamental interaction think more opportunities to look at ads .
As Facebook go on to grow , through app acquisitions and claiming newdemographicsand countries as users , it will do its best to touch base those novel users to its be billion - plus members . We ca n’t know when or if Facebook will ever in reality read digital photos for dust or beg into our phones ’ gyrometers to more fully represent the relationships between all the people in the world , but we now know , thanks to the U.S. Patent Office , that Facebook at least thinks these things are possible .
With that sort of thinking take place internally at Facebook , it ’s heavy not to start thinking of it more as a spy serve than a social internet . If these techniques were put into practice , it would be an incredibly invasive point of tracking in servicing of suggesting you connect with people that you may not really need Facebook to do it that you have a go at it .
This position was produced by theSpecial Projects Desk of Gizmodo Media . Reach our squad by phone , text , Signal , or WhatsApp at(917 ) 999 - 6143 , email us at[email protected ] , or contact us securely usingSecureDrop .
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