{"id":113485,"date":"2018-07-02T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=113485"},"modified":"2018-06-30T15:18:30","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T14:18:30","slug":"what-7-creepy-patents-reveal-about-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/07\/what-7-creepy-patents-reveal-about-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"What 7 Creepy Patents Reveal about Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pictore<\/a><\/p>\n

How Totally Out of Control Is Facebook? Read This<\/strong><\/p>\n

21 Jun 2018 – <\/em>Facebook has filed thousands of patent applications since it went public in 2012. One of them describes using forward-facing cameras to analyze your expressions and detect whether you\u2019re bored or surprised by what you see on your feed. Another contemplates using your phone\u2019s microphone to determine which TV show you\u2019re watching. Others imagine systems to guess whether you\u2019re getting married soon, predict your socioeconomic status and track how much you\u2019re sleeping.<\/p>\n

A review of hundreds of Facebook\u2019s patent applications reveals that the company has considered tracking almost every aspect of its users\u2019 lives: where you are, who you spend time with, whether you\u2019re in a romantic relationship, which brands and politicians you\u2019re talking about. The company has even attempted to patent a method<\/a> for predicting when your friends will die.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook has said repeatedly that its patent applications should not be taken as indications of future product plans. \u201cMost of the technology outlined in these patents has not been included in any of our products, and never will be,\u201d Allen Lo, a Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, and the company\u2019s head of intellectual property, said in an email.<\/p>\n

Taken together, Facebook\u2019s patents show a commitment to collecting personal information, despite widespread public criticism of the company\u2019s privacy policies and a promise from its chief executive to \u201cdo better.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA patent portfolio is a map of how a company thinks about where its technology is going,\u201d said Jason M. Schultz, a law professor at New York University.<\/p>\n

Here are seven Facebook patent applications that show how the company has contemplated gathering and exploiting your personal information.<\/p>\n

Reading your relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n

One patent application discusses predicting whether you\u2019re in a romantic relationship using information such as how many times you visit another user\u2019s page, the number of people in your profile picture and the percentage of your friends of a different gender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT APPLICATION NO. 14\/295,543<\/a> \u2014 Inferring relationship statuses of users of a social networking system<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Classifying your personality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another proposes using your posts and messages to infer personality traits. It describes judging your degree of extroversion, openness or emotional stability, then using those characteristics to select which news stories or ads to display.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT NO. 9,740,752<\/a> \u2014 Determining user personality characteristics from social networking system communications and characteristics<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Predicting your future<\/strong><\/p>\n

This patent application describes using your posts and messages, in addition to your credit card transactions and location, to predict when a major life event, such as a birth, death or graduation, is likely to occur.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT APPLICATION NO. 12\/839,350<\/a> \u2014 Predicting life changes of members of a social networking system<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Identifying your camera<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another considers analyzing pictures to create a unique camera \u201csignature\u201d using faulty pixels or lens scratches. That signature could be used to figure out that you know someone who uploads pictures taken on your device, even if you weren\u2019t previously connected. Or it might be used to guess the \u201caffinity\u201d between you and a friend based on how frequently you use the same camera.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT NO. 8,472,662<\/a> \u2014 Associating cameras with users of a social networking system<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Listening to your environment<\/strong><\/p>\n

This patent application explores using your phone microphone to identify the television shows you watched and whether ads were muted. It also proposes using the electrical interference pattern created by your television power cable to guess which show is playing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT APPLICATION NO. 14\/985,089<\/a> \u2014 Correlating media consumption data with user profiles<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tracking your routine<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another patent application discusses tracking your weekly routine and sending notifications to other users of deviations from the routine. In addition, it describes using your phone\u2019s location in the middle of the night to establish where you live.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT APPLICATION NO. 15\/203,063<\/a> \u2014 Routine deviation notification<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Inferring your habits<\/strong><\/p>\n

This patent proposes correlating the location of your phone to locations of your friends\u2019 phones to deduce whom you socialize with most often. It also proposes monitoring when your phone is stationary to track how many hours you sleep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

U.S. PATENT NO. 9,369,983<\/a> \u2014 Statistics for continuous location tracking<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In some cases, companies file patents defensively, to beat their rivals to a new technology, even if they have no intention of using it. While that could be the case for some of Facebook\u2019s patents, many of them imagine new ways to collect, analyze and use personal information and package it for advertisers \u2014 a process that is essential to the company\u2019s business model. In the first quarter of 2018, almost 99 percent of Facebook\u2019s revenue came from advertising.<\/p>\n

As long as Facebook keeps collecting personal information, we should be wary that it could be used for purposes more insidious than targeted advertising, including swaying elections or manipulating users\u2019 emotions, said Jennifer King, the director of consumer privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. \u201cThere could be real consequences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Other technology companies have filed unsettling patent applications, too. They include Amazon\u2019s wristbands<\/a> for tracking warehouse employees and the Google teddy bear<\/a> equipped with a camera and a microphone.<\/p>\n

But with more than two billion monthly active users, most of whom share their thoughts and feelings on the platform, Facebook is amassing our personal details on an unprecedented scale. That isn\u2019t likely to change, said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. \u201cI\u2019ve seen no indication that Facebook has changed its commitment to watch everything we do, record everything we do and exploit everything we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Additional contributions from Jeremy Ashkenas<\/em>
\nProduced by Jessia Ma<\/em>
\nIllustrations by Andr\u00e9 Wee <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Jun 2018 – A review of hundreds of Facebook’s patent applications reveals that the company has considered tracking almost every aspect of its users’ lives. One of them describes using forward-facing cameras to analyze your expressions and detect whether you\u2019re bored or surprised by what you see on your feed. Another contemplates using your phone\u2019s microphone to determine which TV show you\u2019re watching. Others imagine systems to guess whether you\u2019re getting married soon, predict your socioeconomic status and track how much you\u2019re sleeping. Read on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":113486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}