A tweak to Facebook’s permissions and privacy settings means third-party developers can now access your home address and phone number, warned security firm Sophos.
Facebook announced Friday night a minor change of settings that expands the data people share with external websites and apllicat Facebookers now expressly grant third-party apps like Farmville and sites the right to see your address and phone number via the standard permissions dialogue — although the social network maintained that the new changes would not provide access to the data of a user’s friends.
Facebook has pulled the feature temporarily until it “makes updates and improvements” following the backlash over privacy issues.
TO BE SAFE, PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY:
There are 2 places on your Facebook account you need to check.
1. Privacy Settings: Either delete your contact information (anything you dont want shared) and/or you customize your settings to ONLY ME.
2. Application Settings: For each application attached to your account, check to see if that app accesses your “Contact Information.” If it does, you want to consider deleting the application from your account. When you add a new application, take a second to review what information the app accesses from your account.