Social Media, Technology

Facebook patents new tech which can guess where you are going next

Written by Shaoor Munir ·  49 sec read >

It is alleged that Facebook currently knows where you are exactly. If you are paranoid by that, things are about to become much worse for you.

According to BuzzFeed News, Facebook has patented an application by the name of “Offline Trajectories”, which can predict where a person will be going next based on previously logged location data. So what does it mean? It means that Facebook can use all the location data that you have logged in the Past and use that to predict where you will be in the future.

For example, if you go to a particular restaurant frequently, and then have a habit of going to a nearby coffee house, then next time when you are near the restaurant, Facebook can predict fairly accurately that you will be visiting both the restaurant and the coffee house later that day. Of course, this is a simple example and Facebook will be able to extrapolate a lot more information from your location data.

Tech companies, although regularly maintain that they respect their user’s privacy and collect anonymous data to improve their services and serve ads, have been gaining more and more access into the lives of normal people over the past decade. And with news about data leaks coming almost every day, it is concerning if such a detailed location information about any person gets into the hands of a malicious entity.

Written by Shaoor Munir
I am passionate about technology, hardware and the future of both of them together. Email: shaoor@techjuice.pk Profile