Remember we mentioned about Shadow Profiles and how YOU share information about your friends on Social Networks?
The Cambridge Analytica situation is just using this information shared.
OK, Facebook has not made it absolutely clear how to prevent this, but following these simple tips will help prevent data leaks:
- Stop sharing your information to FB Apps used by your friends by clicking https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications and updating “Apps others use”
- Remove your uploaded contacts (from your phone or other devices etc) by clicking https://www.facebook.com/invite_history.php – follow the instructions on removing “Continuous contacts upload” to stop Facebook looking for new contacts!
- Check the Apps you’ve connected to your Facebook profile too. Change to “Only Me” for most, and for the ones that need to post (eg WordPress, Buffer etc) then allow as you think fit.
- Our opinion is to REMOVE FACEBOOK apps from your device and use the mobile browser versions. If you really, really need to use Messenger, use the “lite” version (search for it on your App Store for your device) and not the full version. The Lite version does not connect to your contacts.
For some light reading, here’s a news item from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43539881
For some dark reading, the CLOUD Act was passed by President Trump on Fri, 23 March which may become a privacy nightmare across the globe as it tries to get around national privacy laws. https://www.nedwos.co.uk/2018/03/18/us-cloud-act-privacy-pesky-gdpr/ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/responsibility-deflected-cloud-act-passes