Would You Upload Your Passport to Facebook?

In an age of rampant identity theft and over-sharing that can compromise our and our family’s well-being, we hear plenty of warnings about what and how to protect our personal information. “Don’t use obvious pet or children’s names and change your passwords often;” “Never give out your full social security number to unknown callers;” “Report stolen credit cards immediately and check your credit report at least annually for anything askew.” In other words, YOU need to be responsible for the safety of your personally identifiable information!

That said, among the most valuable pieces of your “PII” are those unique items that provide both your photo and a piece of information that belongs only to you. Items such as any government issued identification — your driver’s license, your Global Entry card, or your passport, for instance. Entities that request and make copies of these precious pieces of you might include banks, doctor’s offices, and other government bodies. Because you trust and need these services, you agree to share your PII with them.

But if you’ve ever been among the unfortunate who have been locked out of their Facebook accounts, there’s apparently another reason why you “must” share this protected information: Because Facebook requires you to.

How do I know this? Because I’ve been locked out of my Facebook account for three years now. I, however, do not consider Facebook among the kind of entities that I trust with my PII, so I’m at an impasse.

I’m not the only poor sap who’s been locked out of Facebook either. As of this writing, the afore-linked deck I created detailing my lock-out experience has had nearly 21,000 views. I have been personally contacted by other victims no fewer than three times. The latest person took his own whole set of screenshots and detailed his tale of woe for me. Unlike me, he complied with all of Facebook’s request to upload his PII…and still remained locked out of his account.

Unfortunately, unlike me, he had grown completely dependent on Facebook for his business (he’s a photographer) and now finds his livelihood in jeopardy! He wrote me, “I am so sorry to contact you directly but I’m quite desperate already … I am a freelance photographer and my career depends on Facebook. I constantly update my portfolio there and that is where most clients contact me … I never knew how much of a slave I was to Facebook until I lost my access.”

“I never knew how much of a slave I was to Facebook until I lost my access.”

Both he and I have no assurance that Facebook will remove our PII from their servers and there’s no way to get in touch with anyone about that or to help resolve this issue. It’s a disturbing big, black hole to say the least, particularly when a user has become so dependent on Facebook as to be forced to provide this information (or information like it — there’s no way to protect your privacy to any extent if Facebook locks you out because alternative options still ask for invasive proof (would you send Facebook your bank statement?!!) or to give them your cell phone number, which of course is connected to every other app you use).

Is what Facebook’s doing legal? Yes, they violate no law by asking you for this information. Is it advisable for you to provide it? I ask you this: See if you can find an attorney who’d be willing to upload their PII to Facebook, and you’ll probably have your answer.

Because I’ve already done that and because I was curious about under which circumstances you should expect to have to upload your PII, I did some investigation. Interestingly, I found warnings from the very entities you’d expect to want your PII to not send/share/upload it!

And so I’m left wondering: Why is it OK for Facebook to ask us for our sensitive PII? In my mind it exhibits very little interest in actually protecting the privacy of its users. There’s an entire 43-page entry on Wikipedia containing the various criticisms of Facebook, much of which relates to how Facebook has compromised its users. Still, users provide Facebook with this information every day (e.g. “You Won’t Believe All the Personal Data Facebook Has Collected on You”), becoming part of the problem because they value access to Facebook more than they value the security of their very most important personal credentials. To me, this is troubling.

I can’t be the only one who is bothered by this. I do think, however, that I’m in the ever-smaller minority.

How do you feel?