Your Social Signature

By Health Day

Story Created: Mar 12, 2013 at 8:00 PM EDT

Story Updated: Mar 13, 2013 at 8:00 AM EDT

No matter how reserved you try to be online, your Facebook page tells a story...and researchers have found that it's a very revealing one.

A team at the University of Cambridge was able to accurately predict a wide variety of personal characteristics by tracking what people "liked" on Facebook

Using a special model...and data from more than 58,000 volunteers- the authors were able to easily pinpoint gender, ethnic origin, and sexual orientation,

They correctly identified males and females in 93% of the cases, African Americans and Caucasians in 95% of the cases, and homosexual and heterosexual men in 88% of the cases.

They also correctly classified Democrats and Republicans 85% of the time and Christians and Muslims 82%.

One area that was much less predictable: relationship status.

The researchers say these findings demonstrate how a simple digital record can reveal information that many people may assume is private.

I'm Dr. Cindy Haines of HealthDay TV with the health news that matters to you.

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