Facebook May Soon Be Able To Tell If You Are Rich Or Poor

Social media giant Facebook has filed a patent application for a technology that would easily categorise users economic status...grouping them into either of the three  social-economic category; working class, middle class and the upper class.

According to the Dailymail, the social media giant wants to build a system that collects' personal data, such as education, home ownership and internet usage so as to predict their social socio-economic status.

The patent was filed as back as July 27, 2016, but was just made public on Thursday last week. The filing suggested an algorithm that may help in improving Facebook's targeting capabilities so as to be able to server more relevant ads to users.

"By predicting the socio-economic groups of users, [Facebook] is able to help the third party present sponsored content to the sasaran users," the patent read.

"Third parties are able to effectively promote their products or services, and the online system can provide a more engaging user experience to users," the patent added.

Users on Facebook would be asked questions relating to their user's age group. For example, 20 - 30-year-olds would be asked how many devices that they own, while those aged between 30 to 40-years would be asked if they own a house. 

Other questions would include the user's travel history, the highest level of education, the number of internet connected devices owned etc to detremine the users status.

The patent said that Facebook would ask users "questions about income and using other personal data to make conclusions on its own". 

The patent also adds that Facebook won't rely on the data supplied by users on their platform but would also refer to actions perfromed by the user.

Facebook says they won't ask users their income, hinting that people "are typically not inclined to to share income information, which may be sensitive information, on online systes."

It is still unclear if the patent will ever be targeted towards to users.

"We ofteen seek patents for technology we never implement, and paten should not be taken as an indication of future plans," a Facebook spokesperson told the thehill.com.