A shadow profile is a collection of information pertaining to an application's users, or even some of its non-users, collected without their consent. ^[1] The term is most commonly used to describe the manner in which technological companies such as Facebook ^[2] collect information related to people who did not willingly provide it to them. ^[3]

Contents

• History
• See also
• References

Though controversial, this practice has been almost never prosecuted as its legality is being contested. ^[4]

History

In 2012, a data breach of over six million Facebook users' personal information indicated the existence of a number of shadow profiles, since the leaked information had not been provided by the users themselves. ^[5] Consequently, Facebook began linking users' shadow profiles to their respective public profiles.^{[ citation needed ]} The combined profiles were then further shared with the users' friends if they used Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.^{[ ambiguous ][ citation needed ]}

See also

• Internet privacy
• Communication privacy management theory
• Participatory surveillance

References

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