Online security and privacy is a concern for many users. These are people who are quick to accept any pop-up window that appears on their phone or computer, or who even log in to their Facebook accounts haphazardly. Today we'll explain how you can find out which apps and services have access to your Facebook account and how you can revoke that access.
Privacy on Facebook and its security flaws
You've probably been in the situation where you access a website, service, or application and, when creating your user account to log in, it offers you the option to use your Facebook account . It seems simple and unimportant, but what are the implications of logging in this way?
When we use our user account as our login method anywhere, we're granting that platform certain access and information from our account : our contacts' names, the ability to send notifications, or even to post on our own profile. All of this is usually disguised with the phrase "we'll use your information to improve your user experience," accompanied by an invitation to consult their legal terms and privacy policy. Information that very few people actually end up reading.
So, if at some point you have logged in to so many services with your account that you can't even remember the number or their names anymore, we strongly encourage you to take a look at this list as shown below.
Delete the apps with access to your account from the mobile
If you want to identify which applications or services these are from a mobile phone , you should follow these steps:
- Access your account from the Facebook app.
- Click on the menu with the three lines in the bottom bar.
- From here, scroll down until you find the "Settings and privacy" section and, in the drop-down, access the settings menu.
- In this menu you will have to locate the "Applications and web sites" section and click on it.
- Click on the “Session started with Facebook” option.
Right in this menu is where we can see all those apps, services and web pages that in one way or another have access to certain information from our account. There are 3 types of situation for such permissions:
- On going : refer to the most recent accesses. You can see when they were added to this list in the information that Facebook provides us under their name.
- Expired: those permits that, even having been accepted, have not been used for more than 90 days.
- Eliminated: the apps and services that appear here are those from which we have deleted our account, or if we revoke access from Facebook itself.
If you want to delete any service from the active or expired lists, you just have to select it with the button to the left of its name and then click on the blue button that marks “Delete”. They will automatically become part of the eliminated group.
Delete the applications with access to your account from the PC
Conversely, if you want to remove these shortcuts from your computer's browser , you must follow these steps:
- Access your Facebook account from the browser.
- Click on the "Account" button on the top bar, that is, the last one to the right that is indicated with a down arrow.
- Click on “Settings and privacy” and, after that, access the “Settings” section.
- From this new window you will have to click on "Applications and websites" on the left sidebar.
Here, just as we saw in the process to be carried out from our smartphone, we will have the different types of states of said permissions. To revoke any of them, you just have to select it on the button to the right of the name, and then click on "delete".
Improve the security of your data on Facebook
To improve the privacy of your data within Facebook, one of the most interesting settings is to limit access to those third-party services and apps.
Whether you're accessing Facebook from your mobile phone or PC, within the "Apps and Websites" section you'll find an option called "Apps, Websites, and Games" —yes, it's not very intuitive . Activating this option allows you to restrict access to any app, website, or game using your Facebook account. This prevents others from accidentally adding their services to the list of those with access to your profile information.