After a serious data privacy scandal that happened on Facebook a few years ago, almost everybody knows about the security issues with this social network. Experts say that the company has a long track record of incidents that prove inadequate measures for users’ data protection. Repeated failures make many of us worried about the safety of our personal information. Keep reading the article if you want to learn more about the problem itself and the ways of dealing with it.
The Facebook data privacy scandal
It all started in 2009 when the New York Times reported an incident in which private users’ information was shared publicly. Two years later, after an FTC investigation, Facebook promised to address concerns about tracking and sharing personal information.
In 2013, another data failure happened. It turned out that there was a bug, which exposed email addresses and phone numbers of 6 million accounts. It’s important to note that this data had not been given to Facebook by its users. Instead, it was vacuumed from the contact lists of other social network users who were acquainted with a particular person.
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica joined the investigation of data security on Facebook. To begin with, Aleksandr Kogan asked users of a particular review platform to add the thisisyourdigitiallife app to their Facebook account. This allowed him to gather some demographic data and information about users’ likes, friends lists, and private messages, which he shared with Cambridge Analytica.
Once Mark Zuckerberg revealed this, he claimed that Kogan’s app was immediately banned on Facebook. He also asked Cambridge Analytica to officially confirm that they had deleted all the data acquired from the app, so they provided formal certifications of that.
But in 2018, Christopher Wylie, the creator of thisisyourdigitiallife app reported that Cambridge Analytica harvested up to 87 million profiles instead of 50, as was stated before. He said that the data was used to develop “psychographic” profiles of target users with the pro-Trump advertising campaign.
After that, another investigation by FTC was opened to determine if Facebook violated the settlement terms from the 2011 investigation. It was revealed that Facebook was involved in data-sharing partnerships with a few big manufacturers, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, and BlackBerry. Later, in 2020, Facebook admitted to sharing its data with approximately 5,000 third-party developers
Use essay writing services carefully
As you can understand, privacy is one of the most acute issues in the era of social networks. It’s really hard to protect large sets of personal information so they are not used by third parties. Hence, everybody must be aware of different ways to keep their data secure. Especially, if you are a student that frequently shares study materials with peers or instructors, you should be very careful. Remember that when some experts or services similar to Edubirdie do essays for you , you should avoid providing personal details to them. If possible, don’t share your address, school name, and phone number to save your student image in case of data leakage.
Danger for students
Students should be aware that they are quite vulnerable to data exposure. Since Facebook harvests and shares different types of data, such as messages and voice call records, young people must know that they are at risk. If your data is incidentally or accidentally exposed, you might become a victim of cybercriminals.
Also note, that deleting or deactivating Facebook apps can’t prevent you from all the dangers. Sounds a little bit frightening, doesn’t it? But the good news is that Facebook is actively developing a Clear History button that allows users to remove some database records.
How to avoid privacy issues?
To secure your data, you should review Facebook’s Terms of Service, Data and Cookies Policy first. According to these documents, the company prevents apps from collecting information about individual users. Hence, if you want to disable third-party use of this social network, including features like Login With Facebook and apps that rely on FB profiles (like Tinder), go to the Settings menu and click a special button. Moreover, you can manually check if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica a few years ago. To find out if your personal information was collected, go to Facebook Help page.
Final thoughts
Even though Facebook is one of the largest social networks in the world, it has some major issues. It’s really difficult to rely on its security system and trust its developers after all the scandals that have recently happened. But still, this company does its best to protect all loyal users, which deserves respect.
Author’s BIO
Julius Sim is the Head of the Support Team at Edubirdie, which is a leading assignment writing company in the world. He is responsible for high-quality customer service and does his best to meet clients’ needs. Julius believes that a good user experience and great customer support are the keys to Edubirdie’s success.
https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-laptop-near-plant-927629/
https://www.pexels.com/photo/access-app-application-apps-267399/