Can't delete Facebook? Here's how you can still protect your data
In the aftermath of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, several important questions have been raised. Arguably the most important among them is one we, as users, should have asked long back: Is it finally time to delete Facebook? A matter of personal choice, the answer will be subjective and will depend on the vantage individual users are looking at the issue from.
However, what has been made amply clear in the wake of this data breach is that even if you are not ready to kick Facebook out of your life, it is high time we stopped trusting this social media platform with our personal data and became cautious of the third-party apps we install.
After all, it was through the latter that the personal information of millions of Facebook users was stolen. So here's what you can do to protect your personal data.
Delete Facebook
Not for the faint-hearted, deactivating your account is one foolproof way of ensuring that the data you previously shared with Facebook cannot be used by the platform or its partners for nefarious purposes.
As DailyO columnist Pathikrit Sanyal explains in this piece, the actual process is not hard to follow. Even though Facebook does not readily provide a delete account option, all one needs to do is go to this page. While it can take up to 90 days to fully delete one’s account and the information associated with it, it must be mentioned that the account will be inaccessible to other people using Facebook during this time. All one has to do is make sure one does not sign in after clicking on “Delete My Account”.
Strengthen your privacy settings
For those who are not ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the privacy of their personal data, the next course of action is to strengthen privacy settings. You can start off by removing Facebook from connected apps. With this move, users can turn the platform's link with third-party apps off so that they don’t have access to the user's account and its information.
For this, head over to the settings tab which can be reached by clicking on the down arrow next to the question mark icon on the navigation bar. From there, access the “General Account Settings” page, and then head over to “Apps” menu. Next, locate “Apps, Websites and Plugins” and click the “Edit” button after which you have to click on the blue “Disable Platform” button and you're done.
Control what apps can access
Instead of attacking all apps in one fell swoop, you can also control the data that apps are allowed to access – for example, your birthday, relationships, education, employment.
For this also, head over to settings, and from there "Apps" through “General Account Settings”. After accessing this page, locate “App Others Use” and click the “Edit” button after which a pop-up window will open, letting you choose the data you want to allow apps to share with others.
Will this protect your data?
Well, not really. As is the case with Facebook, nothing except for sharing your data is ever easy. Even if you take all the steps provided here, you may still not be able to keep your data out of the clutches of not just facebook but also third party apps.
According to Facebook's policies, you can only limit what you share with these apps in the future. However, for the data shared in the past, you have little say in making sure that it gets deleted for good. Third-party apps will still maintain access to any personal data that the user has shared with them in the past – even after the Facebook account has been deleted by the user.
The most a user can do is individually reach out to third party apps and ask them to delete their data. However, Facebook doesn’t give instructions on how to best reach out to the app, so good luck getting your data back.