How To Protect Your Data From Apps Tracked By Facebook

Did you ever try to investigate the reason behind the growth of social media apps and its availability at zero cost? How companies like Facebook and WhatsApp are running smoothly and in fact flourishing without charging a single penny from its customers? Are they into social service act by letting us connect to people around the world at free of cost?  Well, it’s time to remove your blindfold and understand the reality of social media apps and they work.

We are aware of the fact that we share relevant information and data with social media apps when we sign up for the first time. But we don’t realize that unknowingly we are sharing a lot of personal data with third-party apps including email address, phone number, work history and current location. Also, when we share your data with friends and family on social media platform, they are stored in the form of data by that app.

All this information is misused by these social media companies as they are shared with other companies like Cambridge Analytica. They show us advertisements based on our likes and dislikes. When it comes to Facebook, it encrypts and anonymizes all the data to protect your privacy. But later, they sell your personal information in bulk to companies who want to target and track both you and people like you.

Cambridge Analytica scandal is the most recent outrage related to data leak, where Facebook’s CEO apologized for sharing our information to British political research company Cambridge Analytica. Now, the real question is how safe is people’s data on the social media platform? Do they have any right to keep personal information if they can’t protect it? But now we understand that signing up for apps and website via Facebook and Instagram is not actually free and we are paying a heavy price by giving them permission to access our profiles.

Since you have realized that your data is no more secure, let’s find out the apps and companies that are tracking you on Facebook and how to stop them from stealing your data further.

Step 1: Log into your Facebook on PC and click on the drop-down menu, located on the far-right side of the Facebook page.

Step 2: Click on the settings.

Step 3: Once you are in the settings, click on “Apps” in the left pane.

Step 4: These are the list of companies that are tracking your data from Facebook account. Click on “show All” to find out the total number. It might be shocking to know that your data is shared with many companies and you are not aware about any of them.

Step 5: You can see the apps name and their icons. Hover over any icon, an edit pencil button and delete button will appear. You can make changes by clicking the edit button or completely delete the app. Deleting it means that this app will not be able to take any information from your Facebook account. With click button, you can edit the information you share with the app or change the permission criteria.

Step 6: scroll down to the section shown below. These are advanced options to save you from further encroachments.

As far as smartphones are concerned, even they collect your basic information, which are beamed back to the company that made your handset. All the information collected by the apps are recorded and saved to the individual app’s privacy policies and the permissions you give it.

If you want to configure the information that you have shared or are sharing with your Android phone, go to the settings of your phone. From there, click on to the “Apps & Notifications”, choose any app and click on permission. From here, you can change the criteria’s you want to. Same steps are followed for an iOS device. Most of these permissions can be annulled with a toggle switch on both Android and iOS.

Now most of your data is safe and secure from being shared by Facebook to different apps and companies. And, you have successfully secured your data from smartphone. If you have any opinion to share, please comment in the section below.