ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (WHAT THE TECH?) — You may not remember that post on social media years ago, or a comment on your friend’s photo, but social media platforms do.

Many platforms, like Facebook, store your data from the very moment you join. You can see what information they’ve stored about you too, at least on Facebook.

Go to account settings and look for Your information. The activity log dates back to when you first joined Facebook. Every post, every comment, and everything you’ve ever searched for is saved here. Some of the data can be deleted but the information will always be stored on Meta’s servers unless you close your Facebook account.

Poke around the categories to see what’s there. Some of it you won’t even remember sharing.

Thankfully Facebook deactivated its facial recognition tool a few years ago. That technology could pick people out of a crowd and tag them. Like this photo I was barely in, taken by someone who was not a Facebook friend.

While that feature has gone away, Facebook says it is reviewing the technology and may bring it back one day.

By the way, while you’re in settings, take Facebook’s Privacy Checkup if you haven’t done it in awhile.

While you’re there in settings, go ahead and download your information. If your account is ever hacked and you can’t log back in, you can start a new Facebook profile and upload the information so you won’t lose photos forever.