Afterthought

Facebook Revamps Privacy Settings Amid Cambridge Analytica Storm

Say privacy tools are now “easier to find.”

Facebook has announced a tweak of its privacy settings amid a company crisis over its handling of personal data. In a Facebook post, two senior officials said it’s “time to make our privacy tools easier to find” and introduced measures such as a new privacy shortcuts menu and tools to find, download, and delete your personal data. “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,” said Erin Egan, chief privacy officer, and Ashlie Beringer, deputy general counsel. “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 tinkering comes following the damning revelations that political data firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained information on about 50 million U.S. users via Facebook before the 2016 election.