Windows 10: Off-Facebook Activity - See and Control Data Apps and Websites Share

Source: Now You Can See and Control the Data That Apps and Websites Share With Facebook | Facebook Newsroom

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How to stop Facebook harvesting your data

One way to try and ensure that your data stays private is to request that your Facebook account be deleted, but that doesn't necessarily protect information you have already supplied.

Many users are willing to trade off the risk of supplying their data for the convenience of staying connected to friends and others on the social network.
So what can you do to protect your data if you want to stay on Facebook?

To begin, visit the settings area of Facebook found via the drop-down arrow in the top right-hand corner of your profile page on the desktop version of the site.
Then click on the apps tab on the left of the page and click 'show all' at the bottom, then you can see, edit, and remove all the apps you've 'consented' to track your account.
Now, a likely vast list of all apps that can access and view your own personal data will be revealed.


To edit or remove these apps from your list of permitted platforms, simply hover the mouse over one of the options.
Clicking the pencil icon will bring up the edit options and clicking the 'X' will bring up the option to remove it.
For each app that has access to the data, users can go in and customise what permissions are granted to each app.

For example, many apps use friends list information, profile information and sometimes even work and educational history.
Most will already know your email and have access to any information on your profile.
To restrict access, there is a blue tick option on the right-hand side of different permissions such as email, profile picture, education etc
.
Apps can make some permissions compulsory and these cannot be unchecked and appear as a faded out blue.
If this makes you uncomfortable then the only way to restrict this data reaching that specific company is to click the 'X' and remove the app.
Users can make a judgement call on the optional pieces of information too and customise the data that is shared.

To change the data permissions for all of the apps is time consuming, but it is the only way to gain control over the free distribution of personal data.

By scrolling further down the Settings>Apps window there are other options to further customise who can view personal data.

At this point, it is important to remember that all previous apps were, at some point, granted permission by the user to access their data.
Under the 'Apps Others Use' tab, this gets taken out of the user's hands.
Here, it shows all the data available for Facebook friends to see.
Whilst there may be no issue with this being shared with friends and acquaintances on the social media platform, that data is also being seen by the apps your friends use.
These will include apps that a user did not individually grant permission to.
Here, a checklist of options will appear when selected, and users can customise and restrict what non-authorised third-party apps can view.

 

Facebook is watching you...download your data file.

Facebook may be tracking your every move online even if you have never been on the site.

Not content with monitoring the movements of its own users, the largest social network in the world is building secret files on the activities of billions of people.

Mark Zuckerburg's company says that is uses this information to target adverts and content based on your preferences, as well as for security purposes.

Facebook account holders are able to download a copy of the file kept on them, which contains detailed records of their activities while logged in.

The privacy of users tracked via-third parties is currently less transparent, with no way of checking exactly what Facebook knows about you.


Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, uses data gathered from its 1.4 billion daily active users worldwide as a basis for algorithms which link advertising and other materials to a person's online profile.

It can collect data on every element of your digital identity on the network, from your search and Messenger chat history to photos you've uploaded and files sent across its servers.

Facebook also makes use of social media plug-ins and cookies - tracking devices that follow a user's internet activity - to collect data via third-party websites.

Every time you like or share Facebook content or visit sites with Facebook ads and trackers you are being watched, even if you aren't signed in.


Even if you have never entered the Facebook domain, the company is still able to follow your browsing behaviour without you knowing it.

More than 10,000 websites contain invisible trackers, called Pixels, which record information about visitors.

This includes everything from the operating system you use to your IP address and activities on the website during a session.

This gives the firm insights into everything from where you are in the world, who your internet service provider is, the types of sites you like to visit and how long you spend on them.


New Zealand Herald

HOW CAN YOU DOWNLOAD YOUR PERSONAL DATA FILE FROM FACEBOOK?

• To download your personal data file, click at the top right of your Facebook page and select Settings
• Click 'Download a copy of your Facebook data' below your General Account Settings
• Facebook will process a file with all your data since the day you created your account
• Make sure your email is correct because Facebook will send you an email and notification when your file is ready to download

 

Facebook Cracking Down on Platform Abuse

People use Facebook to connect with friends and others using all kinds of apps. Facebook’s platform helped make apps social — so your calendar could show your friends’ birthdays, for instance. To do this, we allowed people to log into apps and share who their friends were and some information about them.

As people used the Facebook platform in new ways, we strengthened the rules. We required that developers get people’s permission before they access the data needed to run their apps – for instance, a photo sharing app has to get specific permission from you to access your photos. Over the years we’ve introduced more guardrails, including in 2014, when we began reviewing apps that request certain data before they could launch, and introducing more granular controls for people to decide what information to share with apps. These actions would prevent any app like Aleksandr Kogan’s from being able to access so much data today.

Even with these changes, we’ve seen abuse of our platform and the misuse of people’s data, and we know we need to do more. We have a responsibility to everyone who uses Facebook to make sure their privacy is protected. That’s why we’re making changes to prevent abuse. We’re going to set a higher standard for how developers build on Facebook, what people should expect from them, and, most importantly, from us. We will:

1. Review our platform. We will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform in 2014 to reduce data access, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. If we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them from our platform.
2. Tell people about data misuse. We will tell people affected by apps that have misused their data. This includes building a way for people to know if their data might have been accessed via “thisisyourdigitallife.” Moving forward, if we remove an app for misusing data, we will tell everyone who used it.
3. Turn off access for unused apps. If someone hasn’t used an app within the last three months, we will turn off the app’s access to their information.
4. Restrict Facebook Login data. We are changing Login, so that in the next version, we will reduce the data that an app can request without app review to include only name, profile photo and email address. Requesting any other data will require our approval.
5. Encourage people to manage the apps they use. We already show people what apps their accounts are connected to and control what data they’ve permitted those apps to use. Going forward, we’re going to make these choices more prominent and easier to manage.
6. Reward people who find vulnerabilities. In the coming weeks we will expand Facebook’s bug bounty program so that people can also report to us if they find misuses of data by app developers.

There’s more work to do, and we’ll be sharing details in the coming weeks about additional steps we’re taking to put people more in control of their data. Some of these updates were already in the works, and some are related to new data protection laws coming into effect in the EU. This week’s events have accelerated our efforts, and these changes will be the first of many we plan to roll out to protect people’s information and make our platform safer.


Source: Cracking Down on Platform Abuse | Facebook Newsroom

See also: Hard Questions: Update on Cambridge Analytica | Facebook Newsroom