I hope everyone had a great relaxing holiday. We are back onto another work week. Many of us used Facebook or other social user logins. This authorization can allow compromised applications to share our data. Today we will review how to see what applications have access to our data and how to remove this previous authorization.
Why Clear App Permissions?
There is no guarantee that the entities you have given app permissions to are doing so responsibly. In fact, it’s entirely possible that any one of them could be scraping your info at this very moment for their own purposes.
It’s up to you to be responsible for your information, and, with that task in mind, we suggest that you take a moment now to clear any app permissions that have been stored and now sit unused within your Facebook and Instagram settings. Do it today, and do it regularly.
It’s easy to clear them out:
Change Privacy Settings on Facebook
1. Log on to Facebook.
2. Click the drop-down menu on the upper right, scroll down to and click on Settings.
3. Find and click on Apps and Websites.
4. See all active applications below the active section
5. Select all applications that are unused.
6. Click the “remove” button. Depending on how many you have it might take some time.
7. You should receive a warning of what removal of the app could mean to your account settings and private info access.
8. Click on “remove”.
Clear app permissions on Facebook – done!
Changing Privacy Settings on Instagram
1. Log on to instagram.com (yes, the browser version).
2. Go to your profile and click on the gear icon (settings).
3. Select Authorized Apps.
4. Here is the list of applications that have access
5. Make the important decision of which apps must be voted off the Instagram island.
6. For each app that you wish would go away, select the blue “revoke” button.
7. It will then ask if you’re sure you want to revoke the apps access
8. Select yes to revoke the app’s access to your personal information, posting on your behalf, liking on your behalf, etc.
9. Continue to remove and revoke all apps that are not 100% necessary.
Takeaway
Voila! Now that you learned how to change your privacy settings and clear app permissions, your privacy health is now protected. Most people forget about this and forget about these backdoors in our social lives. Give yourself a pat on the (now security-savvy) back. Perhaps you’ll sleep a little better tonight knowing that while these apps are sneaky and gain app permissions that they don’t truly need, you are the boss and now have the power to revoke them at any time. Use your power for good.
I hope this tip was helpful to you! Can you hack it?
JT
Thank you!!1