Four of Meta's apps declare that they collect your health data. None of them will say why.
Siara went through every Meta privacy policy and every App Store data disclosure to build a complete inventory of what Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Quest and the Ray-Ban smart glasses actually collect. One of these apps takes almost nothing. Four of them declare all fourteen categories Apple tracks. And the app most people think of as harmless is quietly collecting as much as Facebook.
Then she shows you how to limit it. Every setting worth changing inside the Meta apps, every permission worth revoking on your phone, which controls actually reduce what gets collected versus which ones only limit how it's used, and the personal choices she's made herself.
She also covers the Meta Pixel, what WhatsApp encryption does and doesn't protect, and what your Meta AI conversations have been used for since December.
Meta is not a social media company, it's a data company that owns nine or ten separate collection points.
Every Meta app collects the same baseline, then each adds its own set on top.
Meta's privacy policy covers all its apps at once, so the App Store privacy label is the only place you can see what each individual app takes.
Data collection across Meta apps runs on a spectrum, with WhatsApp lowest and Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads all declaring all fourteen of Apple's categories.
Those four apps declare health and fitness data and credit scores, and Meta never explains why.
Threads collects as much as Facebook despite being a text app with no camera, no filters and no shopping.
The Meta Pixel sits on more than five million websites, so your browsing reaches Meta without you opening a single app.
You can no longer opt out of off-platform data being collected, only out of it being used.
WhatsApp encryption protects what you said, not who you said it to, when, how often, or where you were.
Most Meta settings control how your data is used, so a tracker-blocking browser is one of the few things that reduces collection at the source.
