Title : Here's how to protect your privacy on Facebook
link : Here's how to protect your privacy on Facebook
Here's how to protect your privacy on Facebook
CTVNews.ca Staff</span>
Published Monday, March 19, 2018 9:27PM EDT
Last Updated Monday, March 19, 2018 10:06PM EDT
As Facebook takes heat after it was disclosed that a U.K.-based company improperly obtained data from 50 million users, now’s a great time to look over your Facebook account’s privacy settings.
But first, some background.
On March 17, it was revealed that data mining and analysis firm Cambridge Analytica utilized an online app masquerading as a personality test to improperly obtain personal data from the 270,000 people who downloaded it. Using a security loophole that has since been closed by Facebook, that data also included information on who the app users’ Facebook friends were, and even what they ‘liked.’ That broad reach thus enabled the firm to collect information on roughly 50 million Facebook users, which it then reportedly used to build psychological profiles in order to target potential voters with partisan advertisements and stories.
Thankfully, since 2016, Facebook-linked apps such as fitness trackers and ridesharing services can only gather information from the users who sign up for them. Such apps, however, are still able to harvest a significant amount of data from your Facebook account, such as your friend list, wall posts and self-declared religious and political views.
Luckily, Facebook now makes it relatively easy to control exactly what type of data such apps have access to.
To do so:
- Login to Facebook on your web browser.
- Click the ‘Settings’ tab in the dropdown menu near the top right of your screen.
- Click the ‘Apps’ tab on the left to see a list of applications currently linked to your Facebook account.
- Clicking on each app will show you exactly what information you are currently sharing with it. You can then edit the information you share with any given app by clicking the blue and white checkmark icons next to each ‘INFO YOU PROVIDE TO THIS APP’ category.
- If there are any apps listed that you don’t recognize or no longer use, simply click the ‘X’ that pops up when you hover your mouse over it in order to deactivate it.
- To add an additional level of security to your Facebook data, scroll down on the ‘App Settings’ page until you see the ‘Apps Others Use’ box. Click the ‘Edit’ button to see what information can be taken from your account when other Facebook users use apps. If you don’t want your friends to inadvertently share things like your birthday, current city and timeline posts with the apps they use, uncheck all appropriate boxes.
If you haven’t done so already, to further enhance your account’s security you should also probably limit the audience of your posts and personal information to just your friends.
To do this:
If all of these steps are still leaving you feeling insecure, you can always take the bold step of permanently deleting your Facebook account.
To do so:
- Login to Facebook on your web browser.
- Access the ‘How do I permanently delete my account?’ page in Facebook’s Help Centre.
- Click the hyperlink that says ‘let us know.’
- Clicking that link will take you to the ‘Delete My Account’ screen.
- Once you press the ‘Delete My Account’ button, you’ll have to re-enter your password and decipher a garbled code to prove that you’re not a robot.
- Once you’ve taken this step, your Facebook account should no longer be visible, though it can take up to 90 days for the company to scrub all of your posts and data from its servers.
Facebook makes it much easier to deactivate your account through your ‘General’ settings page, but doing this will not completely remove your personal data from the social media site.
You can also toggle your Facebook privacy settings from your smartphone’s Facebook app, though taking these steps are much easier from your computer.
With files from The Associated Press
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