The last few weeks have been everything but kind to Facebook. The company was under a lot of scrutiny for having access to user data that it doesn’t require of. In addition to that, the whole WhatsApp privacy issue and the shift to better alternatives such as Telegram and Signal that followed, Facebook has had a bad January to say the least. The company is yet to learn that not addressing the flaws to user privacy is something that no user wishes to see. If you too are tired of Facebook having more access than it needs and are worried about your data, this article will be of immense help to you.
Do note that the simplest way of blocking Facebook from accessing data is by turning off all the permissions, which can be done by opening Facebook and going to the permissions menu.
What Data Does Facebook Have?
Facebook, when asked about these data risks, claims that it will never ask third-party apps or platforms for the health or financial data of its users. The company also claims that it receives activity from businesses and organisations that take use of their tools so as to understand how well their site performs.
Facebook also states that it uses the activity of the users’ based data to show relevant ads and suggest likely topics that might interest them.
But statements do not explain the entire situation. The company is capable of knowing which application you have opened, what you have searched for, what you have purchased and more. Consider one uses some app to book train tickets, Facebook can use the activity and suggest ads to you accordingly.
Additional information that lies in the hands of Facebook includes your purchase history, contacts, search history, products you interact with or ads related to the same, precise location, physical address amongst, and so on.
How to Prevent Facebook from Tracking Your Data
In case you wish to try and limit the amount of data that the app can track from someone, you can refer to the steps given below. Do note, this tutorial is on Android, so iOS users might have a slightly different experience.
Step 1: Open the Facebook application on your device and tap on the three bars to the top, located on the right side of the screen.
Step 2: Scroll down and tap on the “Settings and Privacy” option.
Step 3: Once you press the option, go to Settings option and tap on the Off-Facebook activity option.
Step 4: Tap on the clear history option. Doing this ensures that you delete all the data that has been collected by Facebook. Once you do so, the applications whose logos appear on top disappear.
Step 5: To disable this from happening in the future, you need to tap on more options and then go to “Manage Future Activities”
Step 6: Tap the Manage Future Activity option again and tap on Future Off-Facebook Activity
Doing so will ensure that the user will stop getting personalised advertisements based on their daily online activities. If you wish for your ads to be personalised, you will have to pay for the same with your data, which nobody would want to do.
