Facebook introduces a way to share less personal data with third-party apps

Facebook, the biggest miner of people’s data, introduced a year ago, a way to limit how much personal data third-party apps have access to. Apps then had until 30 April 2015 to change to the new settings. The new version of Facebook login has better privacy controls. It allows users to choose which information they want to share.

Signing into an app via Facebook is convenient until one becomes cognizant that third-party apps are not pointlessly asking access to one’s Facebook but are actually digging through the minefield of data and obtaining it for whatever reason. It is no secret that most users object to this but third-party apps do not give one an alternative, you either allow them to have access to all your personal data on Facebook or sign up the old tedious way, sign up and have a different password and username to remember.

“People tell us they’re sometimes worried about sharing information with apps and want more choice and control over what personal information apps receive. Today’s announcements put power and control squarely in people’s hands” Facebook said in a statement at the time.

This new feature also comes in with a redesigned app control panel which, according to Facebook, is a central place for people to see and manage the apps they use. The newly designed dashboard where users can see a list of apps they use, manage specific permissions, or remove apps entirely. The company says that “after people log in to apps using Facebook, we want to give them a clear and simple way to keep track of their Facebook-connected apps.”

Additionally, with the new Login, users can make a choice about which data an app has access to and users can uncheck categories of information, one by one. For example, Facebook says, if a user wants to share their email address with an app, but not their birthday, they can make that choice with a couple taps.

Facebook describes its new process in screening apps and says that “We’ll soon start reviewing new apps that use Facebook Login to help ensure higher quality apps are available to people – apps that ask for the information they actually need and aren’t posting anything back to Facebook without people’s explicit permission”

Facebook is also working on introducing Anonymous Login, designed to work seamlessly with Facebook Login. Anonymous Login will allow users to log in anonymously to apps. A few developers, and will be available to users over the coming months.