New York: Ever surprised to find a person on Facebook whom you have rarely met, whose face you can vaguely recognise , chances are you may not recollect his name until the "People you may know" feature on Facebook told you about him/her?
This is probably because Facebook stalked you and used your phone's location to suggest new People you could befriend.
There's a lot that could go wrong with this feature, and frankly it's a bit creepy.
"Facebook is using your phone's location to match you with fellow Facebook users who are nearby, reports tech website Fusion.
The report further explores how a GPS data point in users’ phones and apps gives them the recommendations on the friends suggestion tab.
The accuracy that this feature shows has surprised as well as disturbed Facebook users for some time now.
"Thanks to tracking the location of users' smartphones, the social network may suggest that you friend people you have shared a GPS data point with, meaning your friend suggestions could include someone whose face you know, but whose name you did not until Facebook offered it up to you," Fusion reported on Tuesday.
Fusion notes that Facebook uses a combination of several factors, including overlapping friend networks and similar location history (which it tracks through your phone) to recommend people you should add
This happens when two people are at the same place at the same time and used their smartphones to either check-in or just scroll through what his/her friends might have shared on the website.
An example used by Fusion was that of how users in meeting such as Alcohol’s Anonymous could be vulnerable due to the social network. In some cases, users found the partners in meeting showing up on the “People You May Know” section with their entire details and photos open for exploration.
Facebook "always" has access to a user's location until the setting is changed to "never".
The “People You May Know” feature on the social network allows you to add people you may have met at parties or any other social gatherings. There are instances when there is a group of people in one place, there’s a chance that when you get home, you will see all those people as friend suggestions.
Meanwhile, Facebook has clarified that this is not the only reason why users are getting these suggestions.
"The two persons must have had something else in common, such as overlapping networks," a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.
"Location-information by itself does not indicate that two people might be friends. That's why location is only one of the factors we use to suggest people you may know," the spokesperson said.
The location settings on the Facebook mobile app on putting the location history turned on writes, "This allows Facebook to build a history of precise locations received through location services on your device. You can see or delete this information in the Activity Log on your profile."
If this news disturbs you, you can prevent this by turning off Facebook's access to your location -- a feature which is in your phone's privacy settings. Thereby preventing the social network from trying to play matchmaker.
Notably, Facebook's main app is not the only product from the company that tracks the user location as the standalone Messenger app has been previously reported to be doing the same. Last year, a report found that Facebook's Messenger app shared user's exact location with each message. It was reported that Messenger tracked user's location "almost" accurate and more alarmingly it also tracked locations of people who were not Friends on Facebook.
