{"id":855,"date":"2020-05-14T07:25:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T07:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/?p=855"},"modified":"2021-08-05T06:39:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T06:39:24","slug":"facebook-privacy-and-how-to-improve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/facebook-privacy-and-how-to-improve-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook privacy, and how to improve it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Facebook a social media company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded by different privacy scandals in the past decade. The popular social media platform has been charged with user privacy violations by German courts and Facebook\u2019s privacy practices have been under constant surveillance by the FTC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest Facebook privacy scandal of all has to be the one involving data of Facebook users being used for political advertisement and manipulating the election outcomes. With all these privacy scandals surrounding Facebook users of the platform have been growing increasingly conscious about whether their private information is safe with Facebook or not? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some common Facebook privacy-related questions that every Facebook user asks at some point and their answers are as follows:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf How does Facebook deal with user privacy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook ensures user privacy by encrypting all user information, detecting spam, and preventing unauthorized access to user data.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf How can you improve your privacy if you use Facebook?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can improve your Facebook privacy by limiting the number of apps that have access to your Facebook account, disabling advertisement data collection, disabling facial recognition, and disabling locations access for Facebook.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf How can you get information removed from Facebook?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can get your information removed from Facebook by simply deleting your Facebook account and all your data stored by Facebook along with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf How can you find out what information Facebook has about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can download a copy of your Facebook data to know what Facebook has stored about you on their servers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Does Facebook tell you who they share your information with?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Facebook shares your data with third parties including apps you log in to using your Facebook account, third party partners, and law enforcement.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Does Facebook remove user information from third parties?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook will only remove your information from third parties that are compliant with Facebook\u2019s privacy policy and are restricted by it and not all third parties.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As you might have guessed from the short answers provided above that there are a lot of details that you need to be aware of to fully understand how Facebook privacy works. That is why in this we are going to walk you through everything you need to know to understand Facebook\u2019s privacy practices and how you can improve your privacy on Facebook so keep reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does Facebook deal with user privacy?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Facebook has taken some strict user privacy measures in the wake of recent privacy breaches and lawsuits against the company. While the company doesn’t disclose all the measures it takes to ensure user privacy for security reasons it does, however, employ some industry-standard data privacy measures to deal with user privacy. Some data privacy measures that Facebook uses include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Encrypting all user information:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Facebook ensures that all of your private data travels and gets stored in an encrypted form. Encrypting involves converting data from a readable form to an unreadable form so that the data can\u2019t be read or seen by anyone unless they have the unique \u201ckey\u201d to decrypt the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Detecting spam:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Facebook has mechanisms in place to detect if you have accidentally interacted with spam content while using Facebook. This mechanism helps make sure that you don’t accidentally infect your device and allow hackers and other malicious entities to gain access to your data. If you do however come in contact with any spam content while browsing Facebook you will be notified by Facebook that you might have downloaded viruses on your device and Facebook also helps you remove the threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u25cf Preventing unauthorized access to user data:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While Facebook data centers are built using state of the art hardware and protocols keeping data security at the core there are still risks of someone gaining unauthorized access to the data. To make sure that user data is safe from unauthorized access Facebook employs several layers of physical surveillance and limits access to user data so that only authorized individuals can gain limited access to stored data. Not to mention data stored by Facebook is scanned for malware and malicious programs that might allow hackers to gain access to user data.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you improve your privacy if you use Facebook?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even though Facebook utilizes some of the best privacy protection measures there is always a risk that your user data might be used by Facebook and its partners to track your online and offline activities. But there are ways you can reduce the amount of data that Facebook collects about you and improve your Facebook privacy. You can improve your Facebook privacy by doing the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Limiting the number of apps that have access to your Facebook account:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you use your Facebook account to log into different third party apps or games then by doing so you give these third party companies permission to collect your data. You can check and revoke access to unwanted apps and websites that you signed up for using your Facebook by following these simple steps on the Facebook desktop site. Locate the downward-facing arrow located on the top right corner of your Facebook profiles home page. By clicking on this arrow you will open a dropdown menu and select settings. Then in the side menu locate the “Apps and Websites” option this is where you will find all the apps and websites that you have signed up for using Facebook. You can tick the checkbox next to the app or website you want to remove access to and click the remove button to prevent the third party company from accessing your Facebook data.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u25cf Disabling advertisement data collection for Facebook:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t already know Facebook collects your data to then allows advertising companies to show interest-based targeted ads to you. If you don\u2019t want Facebook to collect advertisement data you can opt-out of targeted ads. You can do this by going to the homepage of your Facebook account locating and clicking on the downward pointing arrow and then choosing settings. In the settings section, you will find an option called “Ads” in the side menu. From this menu, you can click on “Ad Settings” and change all the \u201cAllowed\u201d settings to \u201cNot allowed\u201d. Now Facebook won\u2019t be able to use your data for advertisement purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Disabling facial recognition:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you have facial recognition turned on for your Facebook profile will automatically create a template for your facial features. And according to Facebook, this facial recognition data is used to identify the photos<\/a> or videos that might contain your face. But facial recognition data is not something everyone wants to share with Facebook due to privacy concerns. If you want you can disable facial recognition by going into the settings and locating \u201cFace Recognition\u201d. By clicking this option you will find the settings to turn off facial recognition data collection for Facebook.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Disabling locations access for Facebook:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you have been checking in to restaurants and other places you visit using your Facebook profile then Facebook can track your location using this location information. Luckily you can disable location access for Facebook using your Facebook app on your mobile device. Simply tap on the menu button on your Facebook app and select \u201cSettings and Privacy” then tap “Settings”. Somewhere under the \u201cSecurity\u201d settings, you will find the “Location” setting. After tapping on Location you can then select \u201cLocation Access\u201d and then tap on \u201cLocation Services\u201d to deny Facebook from accessing your location data.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How can you get information removed from Facebook?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The only way to make sure that most of your information is removed from Facebook is by permanently deleting your Facebook account. Now keep in mind that deleting your Facebook account is a permanent action unlike deactivating your Facebook account where your account is temporarily taken off. You can delete your Facebook account by logging into your Facebook account from your desktop and find the downward pointing arrow located at the top right corner of the home screen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on the arrow and select settings from the drop-down menu. Select the \u201cYour Facebook information\u201d option from the side menu and select \u201cDeactivation and Deletion\u201c. Here you will find the option to permanently delete your Facebook account. Facebook will ask you to enter your Facebook password to confirm it is you who is requesting data deletion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can you find out what information Facebook has about you?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Facebook gives you the option to download a copy of your data that is stored with Facebook. To get a copy of your information from Facebook all you have to do is go into the settings of your Facebook account and look for the “Your Information” option. From this screen simply select the “View” button located next to the “Download Your Information” option. Here you will find the option to select the type of information you want to download or simply select all of your data at once. When you are done click on the “Create File” button to submit your data download request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Does Facebook tell you who they share your information with?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Facebook shares user data with third parties and partners including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Third-party apps and websites:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When you use your Facebook account to sign up for a website or application Facebook shares a certain amount of your data with these websites and apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Third-party partners and service providers:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Facebook shares user data with third-party partners and service providers that allow Facebook to provide its services to the end customer. These third-party partners include advertisers, data analytics providers, financial institutions, etc. But Facebook also makes sure that these partners can only use the user data under strict guidelines and the data shared with these partners is not personally identifiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25cf Law enforcement:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Facebook shares data with law enforcement agencies in case Facebook is legally obliged under state or country law to share user data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Does Facebook remove user information from third parties?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When Facebook shares user data with third-party apps or websites the data is also stored in the servers of these third parties. And in this case, you have to directly contact these third parties to get your information removed since the data is not regulated by Facebook\u2019s privacy policy anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook a social media company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has been surrounded by different privacy scandals in the past decade. The popular social media platform has been charged with user<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1073,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions\/1073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onlineprivacyexpert.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}