Obtaining friends' birthdays?

Question

When I use the code below it gives me birthdays only for those who share his/her birthday with their friends. However, even if they don't share they had to give their birthdays to Facebook. Can I get all of the user's friends' birthdays? I already get user_birthday and friends_birthday permissions.

$friends=json_decode(file_get_contents('https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?access_token=AAAEHQWIn3oMBADNX0oRCCUujv0Bx8GCKIWQkTIB6KfJxD001x'));

$friends = (array) $friends;
$friends = $friends['data'];


foreach($friends as $key => $friend)
{
    $friend = (array) $friend;
    $fql    =   "select name, birthday_date from user where uid=".$friend['id'];
    $param  =   array(
                'method'    => 'fql.query',
                'query'     => $fql,
                'callback'  => ''
            );
            $fqlResult   =   $facebook->api($param);
    print_r ($fqlResult);
}

I doubt there is. That seems to be the whole point of the privacy settings. If I don't want to share my birthday with anyone, then no one should be able to see my birthday right? — Willem Ellis, Dec 12 '11 at 18:38
So, you want to obtain information that they've said they don't want to give out? — Jon Hanna, Dec 12 '11 at 18:39
Questions like this make me wish for "NO, DON'T DO THAT" as a close reason. Even if it is possible, which it shouldn't be, this would be a terrible thing to do. — C. A. McCann, Dec 12 '11 at 19:10
*"However, even if they don't share they had to give their birthdays to Facebook. Can I get all of the user's friends' birthdays?"* - Are you serious? This question + your last one (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8473108/on-facebook-apps-can-i-post-100-000-wall-post-in-a-moment-with-different-100-00) make your motives look very shady. — Mike B, Dec 12 '11 at 19:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 13 '11 at 00:36

You can only get birthday's which have been shared with the user by his/her friends. All others are off limits. In some cases, this means that you may not be able to get the year depending on what each person has decided to share.

In relation to your previous question (which someone else linked to earlier), I would strongly recommend being very careful about what you are designing an app to do. And please make sure that it follows the Terms of Service. You can find them at https://developers.facebook.com/policy/.

Obtaining friends' birthdays?

1 Answers1