YOUR PERSONAL DATA ONLINE

     To illustrate just how much personal information has been collected on average Canadians by the three big social media networks, the Citizen used publicly available online tools to download the data records of a senior editor. The Citizen’s deputy editor, Keith Bonnell, volunteered for the experiment and proceeded to collect his personal data file from the Big 3: Facebook, Google and Twitter.
   The files contained a massive hodge-podge of data, including a decade’s worth of Facebook status updates, messages, photos, tweets and an extremely comprehensive catalogue of everything Bonnell has used Google to search for online.
    Every event he has indicated an interest in attending — concerts, parties, art shows — dating back to 2007, was listed.
    Facebook also had a detailed database of every advertisement he had ever clicked on and when.There’s a long list of advertising related search terms and topics that he had expressed interest in over the years — from Journalists for Human Rights, to Glenfiddich whisky, to tattoos, to airlines, to Star Trek.
   The file contains a list of every message Bonnell has ever sent using Facebook Messenger, including every picture he has ever sent or received. A list of “friends” named every person Bonnell has befriended on Facebook, including the ones he is no longer friends with and when he “defriended” them.