I thought deactivating my Facebook account would stop the social network from tracking me online. But Facebook kept tabs on me anyway.
Over the past year, I’ve tried to minimize my presence on Facebook. I deleted a 10-year-old account and replaced it with a dummy account that I use as little as possible. I deleted the app from my phone.
As of January, I started deactivating my dummy account every time I used it, rather than just log out. I couldn’t break up completely with Facebook because I needed it to sign up twice a week for a workshop. I thought the precautions would reduce how much data Facebook gathered about me. Turns out, I was wasting my time.
Even when your account is deactivated, the social network continues collecting data about your online activities. All that data gets sent back to Facebook and is tied to your account while it’s in this state of limbo. It’s as if you’d changed nothing.
Facebook says it only removes all of your data if you permanently delete your account. Deactivating isn’t as extreme, the company says, and the social network continues collecting your data in case you change your mind and want to return to your profile. Facebook expects deactivated users to return and wants to continue serving them ads relevant to their new interests.
The ongoing collection of data from deactivated accounts could be considered misleading, privacy experts warn. The vague disclosure the social network provides is another point of concern about its privacy protections.
It makes sense to deactivate your account if you’re trying to hide from people online because other users won’t see your profile, posts and previous comments. You’re essentially invisible to everyone on the social network. Except Facebook. It does nothing to prevent Facebook from collecting data on you.
Your best bet to stop the data collection is to delete your account. You’ll get 30 days to change your mind. During that period, Facebook will continue gathering data about you, the company said.
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