Facebook has been widely recognized for the extreme lengths it takes to collect data on its users.

But several recently filed patents show just how widespread those efforts have become, ranging from anticipating your daily routine to predicting when you might die.

What's more, many of these techniques simply rely on your smartphone's geolocation data in order to learn more about you and your habits.

In perhaps one of the most shocking filings, Facebook researchers describe the ability to 'predict a life change event' for users, such as marriage status, birthdays, new jobs, a birth in the family, graduation, or even death.

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Several recent patents show just how widespread Facebook's data collection techniques have become, ranging from predicting your daily routine to even when you might die

Doing so would help brands serve up related advertisements to a user 'more effectively and in a timely fashion,' according to the patent, which was first spotted by the New York Times.

'Rather than merely relying on a user's timeliness and accuracy in updating his or her profile information, embodiments of the invention predict life change events for a user based on the information available about the user accessible by the Social networking system,' the patent notes.

'Beyond simple reliance on a change in user profile information, the described approach is better able to use all the information contained in the social networking system such as wall posts, instant messages, e-mail messages, etc., to determine whether a user has undergone a life change event and/or to predict whether a user will undergo a life change event at a future time.'

In one patent, Facebook describes using a machine learning algorithm to be able to predict major 'life change events,' such as marriage, birth and even death. It would do this by studying data logs, such as wall posts, e-mails, instant messages and other information

The algorithm would study specific patterns of communication or behaviors on the platform to determine whether a 'life change event' is possible. From there, advertisers would be able to serve up ads 'more effectively and in a timely fashion,' according to the patent

Facebook uses the example of displaying banner ads for wedding locations on a user's profile if they glean that the person might be engaged.

In this case, the user might not report they're getting married until after the fact, which results in a missed opportunity for advertisers.

Facebook proposes in the patent using machine learning to 'compute the probability of a user undergoing a life change event,' as well as 'historical data of other users...who have went through life change events.'

The algorithm might look for words such as 'congratulations', how many times other users clicked on each user profile, or other logged data to form a 'life change prediction engine.'

It's unclear whether the ideas described in the patent, filed in 2012, ever made it onto Facebook's platform, but it highlights the ways in which user data collection and targeted advertising go hand in hand at the firm.

'Most of the technology outlined in these patents has not been included in any of our products, and never will be,' Allen Lo, a Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, and head of intellectual property, told the Times.

It's unclear whether the ideas described in the patents ever made it onto Facebook's platform, but it highlights just how widespread Facebook's data collection practices could be

Facebook describes in a patent continuously studying a user's geo-location data to infer their daily routine, down to a particularly highway or route they use to commute to work (pictured)

Other patents describe Facebook being able to predict who you talk to most often, how much sleep your getting and what TV shows you're watching.

Facebook also filed a patent that seeks to predict your day-to-day activities, using your smartphone's GPS data.

Other patents describe Facebook being able to predict who you talk to most often (pictured), how much sleep your getting and what TV shows you're watching

In it, the firm says it can determine a user's 'routine' using a collection of geo-location data points, even when someone isn't actively using the Facebook app, as a lot of mobile software is able to do by polling, or pinging, their device while running the background.

Facebook says it could use these various GPS pings to create a log of where the user travels most often each day, establishing a 'time-based routine.'

'As an example and not by way of limitation, the Social-networking system or third-party system may infer a home location of the first user is a particular location in San Francisco based at least in part on the first user having a single routine center...at 8 AM on Mondays,' the patent states.

'As another example, the social networking or third-party system may infer the first user may be commuting to work.'

It can also determine whether a particular location might be a user's home by tracking where your phone is in the middle of the night - specifically during the hours of 2am and 5am.

Should a user deviate from their typical daily routine, Facebook proposes a system where it would notify other users that you're currently in a particular region, such as visiting Los Angeles, for example.

Facebook says it can determine a user's 'routine' using a collection of geo-location data points, even when someone isn't actively using the Facebook app, as a lot of mobile software is able to do by polling, or pinging, their device while running the background

HOW DOES FACEBOOK PLAN TO TRACK USERS THROUGH TV ADS? A Facebook patent filed in June reveals the company has designed a system to track its users through TV adverts. The system uses 'a non-human hearable digital sound' to trigger your phone's microphone to record background 'ambient' noises in your home. The trigger noise is hidden underneath the normal audio of adverts and could be so high-pitched that humans cannot hear it, Facebook said. It would contain a 'machine recognisable' set of Morse code-style sounds. If you phone hears the noise, it would begin to listen in to noises in your home, including 'distant human movement and speech'. TV advertisers would use this data to determine whether you had muted your TV or moved to a different room when their promotional clip played. Advertisement

Those patents, taken together with others that describe listening in on users' personal conversations, come in stark juxtaposition to recent comments made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook continues to deal with the fallout from a massive data privacy scandal, which erupted in March.

It was discovered that roughly 87 million users' data had been harvested without their knowledge and shared with Trump-affiliated research firm Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives at the firm continue to deal with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which resulted in 87 million users' data being harvested without their knowledge and shared with the Trump-affiliated research firm

Zuckerberg and other executives at the firm promised to 'do better' in the wake of the controversy.

'This was a breach of trust and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time,' Zuckerberg wrote in a full-page advertisement displayed in the New York Times and other publications.

Facebook also responded by launching a collection of tools that allow users to better understand and control what kinds of data the site is collecting on them.