What You Need to Know About Facebook’s New “Privacy Center”
Facebook has unveiled a new Privacy Center that gives users more control over how the platform collects and uses their data. The former namesake of Meta has long been the subject of complaints and concerns about its privacy and data policies. Users now have a bit more control over what data Facebook has access to.
Why Facebook is offering new privacy features
Facebook collects a lot of your data even when you are not on Facebook. Hundreds of sites, apps and services already collect your information when you use them, and many of these sites partner with Facebook to send certain types of information to the platform if your accounts are linked to your Facebook profile. Facebook uses this information for several different purposes, including advertising and platform research.
In many cases, advertisers use the data collected by Facebook to personalize ads both on the platform and online, tailoring ad content to your preferences and browsing history. The new Privacy Center, which includes settings for non-Facebook data sources, is designed to provide users with more information about the security of their accounts and how their information is being used by both Facebook and its advertising partners.
All over the world, business security, moderation and data privacy policies are subject to more and more scrutiny. In Germany, for example, legislators have considered penalizing companies for not removing illegal content and have helped develop both the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the new German Privacy Act (BDSG-new), a law that tightened restrictions on how businesses can collect and use consumer data.
Facebook, like many other social media platforms, works to enforce these rules and takes active steps to prevent the misuse of user data. Tools like this could become more prevalent online as users demand more control over their data and companies work to comply with new rules.
How to use the Facebook Privacy Center
Facebook is currently in the process of rolling out the Privacy Center on its desktop site; if you have this feature, you will find it in the Settings & Privacy menu. From this menu, you can select one of the five Privacy Center modules to see all available tools and resources. These modules include:
- Security: The main section where you can configure most of the available security settings. This module includes two-factor authentication (2FA) settings.
- Sharing: A section where you can control who can see your content and restrict access to certain people.
- Collection: a section where you can manage data collection on and off the site.
- Usage: A section containing information on how and why parent company Facebook Meta uses the collected data. You can control and limit your Meta data usage here.
- Ads: a section containing information about the collection of data related to advertising. In this module, you can manage ad personalization and control the data that Facebook shares with its third-party advertising partners.
Each of these sections contains valuable information about how Facebook collects and uses your data, as well as the appropriate options for controlling, limiting, or changing the permissions you give Facebook.