Facebook is working on a new system that can determine your social class, according to a patent filed by the firm.
The patent, titled ‘Socioceonomic Group Classification based on User Features’, describes a system that uses artificial intelligence to predict a user’s social class.
The system predicts whether a user is ‘working class’, ‘middle class’ or ‘upper class’ based on a range of factors, including the amount of devices they use Facebook on, their location, and education level.
The patent said: “The input information is based on a user profile on the online system associated with the user as well as actions performed by the user on the online system.
“Thus, the online system can predict the user's socioeconomic group without using the user's income information.”
While it is unclear when or if Facebook plans to implement the technology, the patent suggests that the data could be used by ‘third parties to increase awareness about products or services to online system users.'
For example, charities and corporations could use the data to highlight certain products to people from different classes.