Damage Control For Your Facebook Data

Like Facebook but worried about your privacy? Here’s how to protect yourself.

- Kaitlin Pitsker

Facebook is not getting a lot of likes these days. This spring, we learned that Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics and political consulting firm, gained access to the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users. In the weeks that followed, Facebook’s stock plunged, founder Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress, and lawmakers discussed regulating how tech giants manage consumer information. In an effort to repair the damage, t he social media giant announced plans to prevent further misuse of user data. It’s also rolling out easier-to-use tools to help you manage what you share and which companies have access to your data.

So far, though, the changes have been largely cosmetic, and many users remain concerned about the personal information Facebook is collecting and how it’s being used. You can see much of the information Facebook has collected about you by clicking the small arrow in the upper right corner of Facebook, selecting “Settings” and then “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” Facebook will e-mail a link to download your archive.

If you are ready to delete your account—causing your photos, status update messages and everything else to disappear—see our guide at kiplinger .com/links/quit. Telling the service to remove your account takes only a few minutes, but it may take up to 90 days for Facebook to delete your data from its system. And even that won’t retrieve your data from any company that has already harvested it for marketing or other purposes.