Millions of Facebook users warned to check accounts – ‘hidden’ danger may be lurking

ANYONE with a Facebook account needs to check their settings – it’s a risk not to.

You may be handing over way too much info to other apps without even realising.

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Over the years, it’s possibly that you’ve logged into apps and games with your Facebook account.

You may have also connected your Facebook account to these apps, websites and games too.

These apps can access information about you, and some of it may be personal. Handing over too much info can prove costly in terms of privacy.

Thankfully, it’s possible to check which apps are connected to your Facebook account.

And you can also take back control and edit your settings for those apps – or even stop the access entirely.

What info can connected apps access on Facebook?

If you’ve got profile information that’s public, this can be accessed at any time.

But there will be some private information that you may have chosen (and since forgotten about) to share with an app.

There are three states that a connected app can be: Active, Expired, or Removed.

If an app is Active, that means you’ve used it within the last 90 days.

So it can still access any info on Facebook that you’ve shared with it at any time.

If an app is Expired, it means you haven’t used it in the past 90 days.

That means its access to your non-public information will expire automatically.

It will still be able to access any of your public information.

But Facebook warns: “It may still have non-public information that you previously shared with it while it was active.”

If an app is Removed, that means it can only access public information about you.

Removal is when you’ve either removed it yourself, or the app maker has made it unavailable.

The app may still have some stored info about when you were using it, however.

If you use an app after 90 days of inactivity, it shifts back to Active.

And Facebook can’t always tell when you haven’t used an app, so Facebook may sometimes block private info being shared even if you’re still using it.

How to see the settings of connected Facebook apps

Launch Facebook and then click your profile picture in the top-right corner.

Select Settings & Privacy, and then click Settings.

Then choose Apps and Websites on the left-hand side.

“From here, you can see apps, websites and games that are active or that have expired or been removed from your account,” Facebook explains.

“You can update the information you’re sharing with them, who can see that you use the app or website and notifications you receive.”

You can click View and Edit next to an app to see and edit its settings.

And you can press Renew to re-enable access for an expired game.

You can remove access at any time with the Remove button.

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