Everything that Facebook knows about me

Self initialised project exploring Facebook’s collection of my personal data

Outcomes: installation & editioned prints

‘Everything that Facebook knows about me’ was conceived shortly after the news of the breach of data by Cambridge Analytica. The project was prompted by an article from the Guardian which spoke about the surprise at the quantity of data that Facebook holds about its users. This led me to request a copy of my entire archive of data that was currently held relating to my account. On receiving the link to download the data, I was shocked to see the file size come to 1.6GB, with the majority of that data being text. On further investigation I found that every detail of every click or message I had ever made was stored, this included every private message or group I had ever participated in. Whilst exploring the content of this archive I found that a lot of it was extremely personal and could be potentially damaging in the event of a data breach.

The danger of this data became significantly worse because of the sheer quantity of it. Therefore my aim for the project became about finding a way to show the quantity and personal nature of this content. This led me to turn what is usually an unconceivable digital object into something physical through utilising the constant stream of a receipt printer. I collated the data into a series of text files which could then be sent as a stream of data to the printer which could then be utilised to form the outcomes for this work.

Outcomes included a live installation piece and an edition of 10 individual silkscreen prints.

Prints available for purchase.