There's Someone Here for You. It's Your Deleted Data.

Like a bad relationship, social media data can keep turning up

Awhile back we posted a 4-part article on social media. In Part 3, I debated with a colleague at the time that it might be hard to recover deleted data from a social network site, especially one as large as Facebook. It seems it is easier than I may have speculated. Facebook now faces a fine for not deleting data a user had actually deleted. Yup, gone but never gone...just like a bad relationship.

If you are a reader of our fine little blog (shameless plug), you'll know that we've discussed social media and relational data before. Behind every social media website is a database. Inside this database is all the information that you post to your wall, send to friends, etc. Given its structure, relational databases often don't actually delete data; rather they just switch a flag to "off". Or if you prefer, change a switch from true to false, one to zero. 

This is sometimes done to preserve the referential integrity of the database. After all, you may want to go back and revisit this data, or it may be important for historical purposes. Think of it like a relationship. You may not be dating the person any longer, but you still have their phone number. In other words, you've switched the relationship off, but have the option of turning the relationship status back to on. Well, that is if the person doesn't ignore your calls.

This is somewhat how relational databases work, but not all of the time.

In some instances, the database relationship is shut off permanently, and the data is removed. Much like my heart when those calls didn't get returned, but alas, I digress.

Now let's step back to our dating analogy (okay, we never left it). Imagine that you shut off your relationship off permanently, deleted the phone number, and threw out everything they left behind at your apartment, only for them to show up at a quiet romantic dinner years later while whimsically dining with your new flame!

I believe the dating term for this is...psycho, yup, stone cold psycho.

I'm pretty sure that is what anyone would call a past relationship that shows up unexpectedly at your door, years after the breakup, smiling sweetly, and carrying all their stuff you threw out the window, saying "remember what good times we had?" Well, you could call them psycho or just closely related to my ex-wife.

Seems that Facebook is Max Schrems psycho ex.  He deleted a bunch of data and it came back to haunt him like an ex that wanted more alimony. His story was just posted to The Guardian, and is what prompted this blog post. Facebook, after a request from Schrems, produced, and I quote:

12,000 pages of data [that included] rejected friend requests, incidences where he "defriended" someone, as well as a log of all Facebook chats he had ever had. There was also a list of photos he had detagged of himself, the names of everyone he had ever "poked", which events he had attended, which he hadn't replied to, and much more besides.

I don't know about you, but I don't want records being kept for everyone I've poked.

Facebook is now facing a €100,000 fine for keeping this information and violating Mr. Schrems' privacy, which by the way, is the maximum fine allowed by Irish law if I understand the article correctly. Not much of a penalty for Facebook.

Given that the fine isn't much, it is not likely going to stop Facebook from this practice unless something bigger happens to change the status quo. I am sure that many of you don't want your personal messages on Facebook recovered, or worse yet, exposed in a data breach. Remember my post about dropping the FB Bomb and Facebook being a bad tattoo? Well your FB Bomb message to Grandma about her bad tattoo could one day be used against you (seriously though, what was Grandma thinking?)

If you're like Max Schrem, you may want to ask to see how many pages of data Facebook has on you. Then you can relive the moments of relations past via the posts have you deleted, pictures you have "detagged" yourself from, messages you've sent to later remove, friend requests you've denied, mafia members you've whacked, and yes, people you've poked. Here's what Max said about it:

I discovered Facebook had kept highly personal messages I had written and then deleted, which, were they to become public, could be highly damaging to my reputation

What is the moral of our relational data story? Beware of what social networks promise! Many of us sit for hours each day with our future psycho ex, sharing secret after secret thinking it is safely locked away. Not the case. Don't come crying to me when this ex shows up at your romantic dinner with the latest flame carrying compromising photos and long lost love notes from the past.