Actually, not much. At least not much that I am really concerned about, but I did get a pretty nostalgic tour of my life since 2008. I probably didn’t find much surprising information because in 2010, as part of a mindfulness exercise, I reduced my Facebook interactions and eventually went as far as deactivating my account. After a few months I caved, and I reactivated it but to minimize the number of updates, alerts, and the constant influx of personality quizzes I pretty much set all of my sharing controls to share the least amount of information. I consider myself fortunate for having done that.
Downloading My Facebook Archive
To download my Facebook data archive I went to my General Account Settings page where I found that it is important to Facebook that I measure temperature in Fahrenheit. 
In the lower left-hand corner of the information table there is a link to download a copy of your Facebook data that will take you to the information download page where you click a button to download your archive. After entering my password and waiting about 10 minutes I had my archive. I do find it amusing that Facebook provides the caution statement to protect your sensitive personal wall posts, photos, and profile information when storing or transmitting the archive.
The Download
My archive contained the following:
- An html directory
- A messages directory
- A photos directory
- An index.html file.
The index.html file contains all the basic profile information such as name, join date, email addresses, relationship and family information, activities, groups, etc. (image). On the left there are links to more profile information such as:
- Contact Info
- Timeline
- Photos
- Videos
- Friends
- Messages
- Pokes
- Events
- Security
- Ads
- Applications
As you may expect, these links point to directories that contain pretty much every interaction have ever had on Facebook. Many of us have always known this was the case but, even in knowing that, it is quite sobering to see just how much information there is on us on the web that just persists forever. The categories that were most interesting to me were Timeline, Photos, Friends, Message, Security, and Ads.
Timeline
Not surprisingly Timeline contained pretty much every interaction that every transpired on my Facebook timeline. Once again, nothing really to see here but looking through the data did evoke quite a few memories, both happy and sad. It was a reflective walk through time and made me think about why we thought Facebook was originally created: to share memories and experiences with friends and family.
Photos
As you would expect, all of my Facebook photos. What was interesting is the file called “Facial Recognition Data”. It contains some technical information that pertains to their facial detection algorithm and evidently, I have provided permission or tags to 23 of my facial images to help train their model to recognize me in other Facebook photos. According to Techcrunch, Facebook can use this feature help thwart impersonation and to alert you when photos of you are being uploaded or used within Facebook. Supposedly Facebook does not intend to use this to target news or direct marketing efforts but neither did they intend for their platform to be turned into a reality distortion field, either (link)
Friends
Lots and lots of “friends” here. Whether they are real friends or not, I am surprised at the number of people I have crossed paths with in my life and travels and established contact with on Facebook. I have lost contact with a lot of these people, but I think I will reach out to some of them to say “Hi” and to see how they are doing. There are also the deleted friends; their names are also preserved as everything persists. Looking through these lists once again reminded me of social intent of Facebook rather than its business motivations.
Messages
This directory contained all the messages I had exchanged with friends over the years. More of the same but with the bonus of some files I did not recognize. Out of curiosity I opened a couple of them to find cat videos and some PowerPoint presentations in foreign languages that I would not have downloaded. They must have been unsolicited attachments from who knows where. Twenty-four hours later I got a message from Apple that someone was using my 
Apple ID to sign in to a device in Bratislava. I am not sure these events were related but one has to wonder. In case you didn’t know this, don’t, just don’t open any unrecognized files in your primary operating environment. If the curiosity is killing you, open suspect files in a virtual machine so that you can isolate your computer from malware. After this I went through effort to change all of my necessary passwords. Installing a virtual machine would have taken less time and would have been safer.
Security
The security section contains every data related transaction I ever performed on Facebook. Everything from the first login I ever initiated to every IP address and associated location I connected through can be found in here.
Ads
The Ads category is the information Facebook uses to target advertisements based on content I have interacted with. A list of advertisers with my information is also contained here. No real surprises, again, but I am upset that after all of the 
Arcade Fire albums I have purchased, the band does not send me a Christmas card since they have my contact information.
Final Thoughts
I didn’t find anything I didn’t expect in my Facebook archive. Fortunately, unlike some users, I didn’t discover that I provided the contact information for all of my friends to Facebook. When I originally installed Facebook on m iPhone I was explicitly provided the option to provide access to my contacts and I simply clicked the “Don’t Allow” option. Maybe this option was not always provided, thus the number of people that have been surprised that they provided this information.
Overall, I am not upset or alarmed by what Facebook has on me. It is more or less what I expected to find. What does upset me, as I looked at old conversations and photos with my best friend and climbing partner, Patrick, who passed away in 2012, is that Facebook has knowingly capitalized on our vulnerabilities and social needs as humans for monetary gain while shirking responsibility. In participating in this modern digital community, we provide a treasure trove of free information and invite Facebook and other platforms to intrude into our lives and spam us with ads and warp reality to the point of essentially shattering our social fabric. Then again, maybe all of those adds for climbing and skiing equipment are Patrick saying “Hello” and that I should be out on an adventure instead of sitting at my computer.
I hope you download your archive and look through it to see what data you have provided. It can be both cathartic and informative. Please tweet me or leave me a comment to share your experience and what you find. Hopefully you will have taken the steps to protect your information and you will consider the implications to best manage your risk and exposure.
Remember – Nothing is free. We are the product. Be vigilant. Be data literate.