This year has been a turbulent one for Facebook. Other than profits were down, the company has had to face so many blows to its reputation, especially regarding user privacy practices. A few users have been led to deleting their Facebook accounts.
With the recent Facebook photo bug that exposed users’ photos to apps, things do not seem to be getting any better.
Many people remain indifferent to this security issue because they do not know if they were affected. It is important to know if your privacy has been breached.
With 6.8 million people and 1,500 apps connected to Facebook affected, it is important to find out if you are affected by the Facebook photo bug. This flaw could expose your photos to app developers regardless of whether or not you posted a photo on your timeline or not.
Checking the FaceBook photo bug
This bug specifically affected photos on your Facebook stories. With this bug, apps that had access to certain photos you allowed the apps to have were able to also gain access to other photos from your account.
Click here to check if your photos were affected. This page displays some background information about the bug. Around the middle of the page, it will show whether you were affected or not by the bug just as shown in the image below.
On this page it explains that developers are instructed to delete the photos, and after that they will regain access to only the photos they should have had access to instead of additional photos from your account. This is left to be seen if the developers actually take the instruction to heart and delete the photos.
Steps to take if affected
If affected by the bug, you may want to consider the following steps:
1. Verify which photos were exposed by logging into apps where you have shared your Facebook photos.
2. Go through the Facebook data policy. At the bottom of the page you will be directed how to contact Facebook with questions and concerns.
Note that one precautionary step to take in case of privacy breaches is to report a bug promptly to Facebook. You can do so by following this link. The page has different categories. Select one that feels most related to the bug that you want to report or select from one of the tabs.
Conclusion
It is impossible to tell what bugs Facebook or other social media platforms may be faced with in the future. This makes it impossible to know what type of content that you shouldn’t share. You may want to consider only publishing content that you feel would not be much of a bother to you if leaked.
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