UPDATED 16:10 EDT / MARCH 28 2018

APPS

Facebook hopes privacy settings update will put users at ease

Following the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook Inc. has been struggling to restore users’ confidence in how it handles their private data, and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg assured users last week that the company will investigate and ban apps that misuse private data. Today the company announced updates that make its privacy settings easier to find and understand.

Facebook claimed that most of its new privacy updates “have been in the works for some time,” but recent events made the features a higher priority for the company.

“Last week showed how much more work we need to do to enforce our policies and help people understand how Facebook works and the choices they have over their data,” Facebook said in a blog post. “We’ve heard loud and clear that privacy settings and other important tools are too hard to find and that we must do more to keep people informed.”

The updates released so far appear to be little more than tweaks made to the layout of privacy settings on the Facebook mobile app. The company said that it has removed some outdated settings and consolidated everything else, putting all of its settings into one location rather than having them “spread across nearly 20 different screens.” Facebook also created a new privacy shortcuts menu that allows users to quickly change particularly important settings such as two-factor authentication, targeted ad preferences, post visibility and so on.

Finally, Facebook said it will introduce a new page called Access Your Information, which the company said is “a secure way for people to access and manage their information.” With Access Your Information, users will be able to download and supposedly delete all of their personal data from Facebook. It’s not clear if this feature will actually delete users’ data from Facebook’s servers or if it will simply remove their information from the social network. The feature will also not delete data stored by third parties that had access to it, such as Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook said that it will announce other privacy tools and updates in coming weeks, including its plans to fulfill the promises made by Zuckerberg last week. It’s possible more will come out at the company’s annual F8 developer conference May 1-2.

Image: Facebook

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