How to check if you were affected by the Facebook photo bug

If Facebook is still around in ten years, it is possible that the company  will gloss over 2018 when writing its own history. This has not been a good year for Facebook in any sense of the word and that’s not even because profits were down somewhat. Facebook’s reputation has taken several hits after its poor practices with respect to user privacy came to light on several occasions. It prompted many users to want to delete Facebook. Despite all that, the company still saw fit to launch its video chat device Portal. Things seem to keep getting worse with the recent Facebook photo bug that exposed users’ photos to apps.

Check Facebook photo bug

Facebook recently had to disclose (read: admit before someone else told on them), that a bug caused photos to become visble to third-party apps. These photos are photos that normally these apps weren’t allowed to access. Specifically, the photos that your shared to your Facebook story were exposed. Facebook stories expire after 24 hours and per this bug, the apps that had access to them were able to keep the photos past that period. If you’re wondering whether your photos were exposed, you can check here.

If your photos were indeed exposed, the page will tell you what to do though, the page isn’t very encouraging for users who weren’t exposed to the bug. The page says it is ‘Instructing developers to delete the photos’, which is nice but what’s to say the developers will actually delete them or not take any back up before deleting them?

The bug is only two weeks old but it is concerning nevertheless. Facebook stories aren’t exactly a popular feature but that doesn’t mean people don’t use it. The fact that it’s not very popular is the only reason the number of affected users is comparatively small.

As with any security breach involving Facebook, it’s a good idea to review which apps have access to your Facebook account, and what information they have access to. The year is almost over so if nothing else, add this to your end-of-year social media cleaning and remove all apps you don’t use or apps that seem to need more information than is necessary.

Our Facebook ID has become a default sign in option for loads of apps and services. This was a good thing until Facebook began to exploit it. It might be time to go back to signing up for services and creating actual accounts for apps instead of clicking the ‘Sign up using Facebook’ option.