Facebook has been collecting call records and SMS data from Android devices for years. Several Twitter users have reported finding months or years of call history data in their downloadable Facebook data file. A number of Facebook users have been victimised by the recent Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, prompting them to download all the data that Facebook stores on their account. The results have been alarming for some.

The deleted Facebook Zip file contains info on every single phone cellphone call and all the SMS . Others have found a similar pattern where it appears close contacts, like family members, are the only ones tracked in Facebook’s call records.

Ars Technica reports that Facebook has been requesting access to contacts, SMS data, and call history on Android devices to improve its friend recommendation  algorithm and distinguish between business contacts and your true personal friendships. Facebook appears to be gathering this data through its Messenger application,  which often prompts Android users to take over as the default SMS client. Facebook has, at least recently, been offering an opt-in prompt that prods users with a big blue button to “continuously upload” contact data, including call and text history. It’s not clear when this prompt started appearing in relation to the historical data gathering, and whether it has simply been opt-in the whole time. Either way, it’s clearly alarmed some who have found call history data stored on Facebook’s servers.

Facebook has made it difficult for users to delete their accounts, and instead pushes them only towards "deactivation" of their account, which eventually leaves all their personal information and data on Facebook's servers forever.

While deleting their Facebook accounts in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many Facebook users were surprised to discover that the social media Monster stores far more information than what they ever expected. Tens of thousands of people across the world have started deleting their Facebook accounts over privacy issues. Many leading tech industry pioneers have also slammed Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, who admitted last week that the Facebook scandal over privacy 
flaws was "A major breach of trust". In fact #DeleteFacebook has remained one of the top trends across social media platforms.

Users who logged in to Facebook to delete their profiles after the privacy scandal discovered that Facebook stores data and complete logs of all incoming and outgoing calls from a users phone as well as store data of all SMS messages.

#DeleteFacebook, the movement urging people to shut their Facebook accounts over breach of privacy, started after it was revealed that Facebook had secretly shared the personal information of 50 million users, without their explicit consent, with a Cambridge psychologist. That data later ended up in the hands of the election consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which even has an India link. Though both BJP and Congress have denied links to Cambridge Analytica, records show otherwise.

In its response, Facebook said, "The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy to find the people you want to connect with. So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a messaging or social app, it's a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts,"

"Contact uploading is optional. People are expressly asked if they want to give permission to upload their contacts from their phone - it's explained right there in the apps when you get started. People can delete previously uploaded information at any time and can (later) find all the information available to them in their account and activity log from our Download Your Information tool," the statement adds.

The 'Messenger for Android' asks for permissions to read all call and SMS logs for a similar purpose. The company notes that users can stop continuously uploading contacts and delete all their previously uploaded contacts by turning off the continuous uploading setting in the Messenger app. Permanently deleting a Facebook account will also result in contacts no longer being uploaded, and all previously uploaded contacts being deleted from the users profile, but might remain on Facebook servers.