Here’s How to Find Out if Your Private Information Was Shared in Facebook’s Major Data Breach

Published April 10, 2018 at 7:51 pm

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A few weeks ago, Facebook announced that it was hit by a possible privacy violation where tens of millions of users’ data might have been shared. Now, there’s a way for you to find out whether your information specifically was shared.

You may have heard that Facebook is under fire after recent allegations of unauthorized access and use of people’s Facebook profiles, according to a recent statement from the federal privacy commissioner.

The allegations involve Cambridge Analytica and a personality quiz app circa 2013 called “This is Your Digital Life”. Some 300,000 users downloaded the app and in turn tens of millions of their friends’ data was also accessible. 

Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg had promised that Facebook was set to make tools more easily available for users to control their privacy settings. 

But you might be wondering, how do I know if my personal information might have been shared? 

It’s actually as easy as a click of your mouse (or a tap of your finger!).

Click here to find out if your information was shared with Cambridge Analytica.

When you click that link, you’ll get a message telling you whether you or your friends logged into the “This is your Digital Life” app and thus whether your information was shared.

If your information wasn’t shared, you’ll get a message saying that it doesn’t appear you or your friends logged into the app, so you’re all good. 

If your information was shared (you or your friend might have logged into the app), the message will read that your public profile, page likes, birthday, and current city were likely shared. For some people, their timeline, posts, messages, and hometown may have also been shared.

Zuckerberg said on Facebook that the social media giant is taking further action on their end to protect people’s private information. The social media giant is investigating any apps with access to large amounts of information, auditing apps with “suspicious activity”, banning developers that don’t agree to the audit, restricting developers’ data access, and putting a tool at the top of the news feed page where users can revoke apps’ access to their data easily.

You can also control your privacy settings here.

Hopefully, your data was not shared, but if it was, won’t that be an interesting conversation with your Facebook friends?

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