So you’re on Facebook and pride yourself with making sure only a select few apps are allowed to access your personal information. But you could be in for a surprise learning just how many apps actually are granted access to the data Facebook has collected on you.
Enter MyPermissions, a new iPhone app which – as the name suggests – scans your Facebook permissions and alerts you when new apps and online services gain access to your personal information on the web. It’s a free download and I urge you to check it out right now and take control of your privacy.
You can also revoke Yahoo and Facebook apps right from within the app itself and do more with a handy Chrome extension. More info and a nice video right below…
The app’s been available since September and was highlighted earlier today by Robin Wauters of The Next Web.
They also have a nice Chrome extension which scans your app’s permissions on Facebook. Additionally, it gives you handy links to permission pages across a number of popular services, including the likes of LinkedIn, Dropbox, Instagram, Flickr, Google and so forth. Once it finishes scanning all of the Facebook apps you’ve authorized, the extension presents you with a detailed analysis.
I consider myself knowledgable when it comes to privacy and pay careful attention when authorizing services that access my info. That being said, I was shocked finding out that way more apps and services had access to my information than I ever thought.
Luckily, with a click of a button you can revoke all access or specifically select apps that you want removed from the list. The other thing this extension does is it alerts you in real-time whenever a Facebook app wants to access your information and files.
Why does this permission thing matter?
Because once you approve a Facebook app, neither you nor Facebook are in control of where exactly a third-party makes copies of your personal information, chats, your media files and so forth, for how long and what it does with your data.
If you’re serious about privacy on the web, this handy extension in conjunction with the iOS app should be a part of your toolkit, especially with Facebook so aggressively and cunningly invading our privacy.
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