Malicious apps can use your Facebook data without your knowledge. It is therefore important to clean in order to protect your privacy.
Some apps on your smartphone sometimes ask you to log in with your Facebook account information. This is certainly practical, but the apps then have access to data from the social network and could perfectly well siphon it off, as happened in the Cambridge Analytica case.
So now is the time to go and monitor your account settings to possibly eliminate apps that you no longer use or that appear suspicious. We give you the procedure to follow:
1 – With a web browser
- Log in to your Facebook account then click on the small triangle at the top of the window, then select Settings.
- Click on Applications in the left column.
- You can then edit the rights of each application by clicking on the small pen-shaped icon, located next to the name of the app.
- If you find an app that is suspicious or to which you no longer wish to allow access to your information, do not hesitate to disconnect it from your Facebook account by deleting it.
To do this, click on the small cross located next to the name of the app, then on the button To delete in the window that appears.
Note that some applications can store personal data, in this case, you will also be offered to erase this information. One piece of advice, do it.
- An even more drastic method is to prevent apps and websites from connecting to your Facebook account. To do this, click on the button To modify in the section Applications, websites and modules, then on the button Deactivate the platform.
- Finally, click on the button To modify in the section Apps that others use and uncheck all the boxes. Then click on the button Save. This will prevent your friends’ apps from accessing your data.
2 – With the Facebook app
The process is similar to that of the web version. In Facebook, tap on the menu icon (three small horizontal lines), then on Account settings. Then tap on Applications to display the list of connected applications in order to optionally delete them.
You can also act on the option Apps that others use, to better control the information retrieved by the apps installed and used by your contacts.
In this case, it is possible to deactivate a dozen or so criteria that give access in particular to your bio, your date of birth, your family and relationships, etc.
Finally, radically, it is possible to deactivate the platform which connects apps and websites to Facebook. This solution prevents your personal data from being out of your control. However, you will no longer be able to connect to the sites and applications on which you have chosen to identify yourself with your Facebook account.