Facebook is asking users worldwide to review their privacy settings – TechCrunch

Starting this week, Facebook will begin asking users worldwide to review their privacy settings with a prompt that appears within the Facebook app. The experience will ask you to review how Facebook uses your personal data across a range of products, from ad targeting to facial recognition. This request to review Facebook’s updated terms and your settings follows a similar experience rolled out to users in the European Union as a result of the new user data privacy regulation, GDPR.

However, EU users have to agree to the new terms of service in order to continue using Facebook, Recode point out, after asking Facebook how the worldwide experience differs from the one being shown in Europe.

Elsewhere in the world, users who dismiss the prompt twice will be automatically opted in.

But before you close that window too quickly, you may want to take a look at what Facebook is asking.

In the new prompt, which appears when you visit News Feed, Facebook will allow you to review details about advertising, facial recognition, and the information you’ve chosen to share on your profile.

For example, you may no longer feel comfortable having your religion, political views or relationship information exposed, and the new experience will allow you to change those settings.

As you continue reviewing your information, each screen will walk you through what data is collected and how it’s used, allowing you to make better decisions about Facebook’s use of your data.

Specially, Facebook says the feature will include the following information:

• How it uses data from partners to show more relevant advertising
• Political, religious, and relationship information you’ve chosen to include on your profile
• How it uses face recognition, including for features that help protect your privacy
• Updates to its terms of service and data policy (that were announced in April)

If you’ve already disabled some of these settings, you won’t be shown that information or encouraged to turn the features back on.

After you adjust your settings, the changes go into effect immediately and you can adjust them again at any time from Settings or Privacy Shortcuts, the company says.

Though the GDPR is aimed at protecting user data in the EU, Facebook has come under fire for its breach of trust with its user base due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal – where data was hijacked from 87 million users without their consent. The company is now revisiting a lot of its user data privacy practices and making changes as result of both that and GDPR’s requirements.

The experience will start popping up on Facebook this week.