I also know that one of my so-called "friends" posted a group picture with me in it, and labeled the people in the picture. At one point I did a search to see what information was out there about myself, and that picture popped up associated with my name.
I guess that I'm just another casualty of the information age, in spite of my best efforts.
But with ML facial recognition I figure the jig is up.
In general, AI that's hawked at CEO types and police is mostly snake oil, inferior to what you can make yourself if you read hackernews and are willing to dive into Arxiv.
Not sure how much of that has changed since then. But contact data is by far the most valuable mined from phones. Facebook is no exception.
I know it suggested my ex-girlfriend as a connection when I opened my account, five years after we'd last talked.
There's a lot of data flowing around out there, and people overwhelmingly willingly hand it over. You'd think that there would be a law that, having collected that data, they would be required to hold it in confidence - Not for you, but as an agent of the friend who gave them that data. And there likely is, but good luck getting it enforced.
This is basically how LinkedIn grew their network - read your addressbook, put a "invite everyone you know" button in the on-boarding slideshow. Facebook just does the extra work of noticing your email in other people's address books, so they can tell you who your friends will be before you even sign up.
I'm curious how it got your email -- and decided to use it. I have several publicly visible emails, and they've received plenty of spam, but none from FB like that.