And if you use Facebook a lot, then the company has plenty of your personal data to make money from. It most likely knows your name, age, email, location, hobbies, birthday, religion, shopping habits, political leanings, and favourite sports teams. And it knows the same about your friends, too.
Businesses also track you and share that data with Facebook, which uses your information to target ads at you.
Off-Facebook activity includes information that businesses and organisations share with Facebook about your interactions with them, including things such as visiting their website or logging in to their app with Facebook.
Now, a new feature called Off-Facebook lets you see which businesses, websites and apps are sharing their information on you with Facebook.
It won’t stop Facebook making money from you or stop it using the data you keep sending to it, but it will disconnect your profile from the data shared by other advertisers.
You are removing data Facebook holds about you that it gained elsewhere, hence “off Facebook”.
Interactions with companies that Facebook can get its hands on include opening apps, logging on to apps using Facebook, viewing content, searching for items, adding items to shopping carts, purchasing goods and making donations.
Facebook will still show you ads. It’s just that your ad preferences and actions you take actually on Facebook will be used to show you “relevant ads”.
Now you can view a summary of the information other apps and websites have sent Facebook, and disconnect this information from your account. You can also disconnect future off-Facebook activity from your account.
If you value your data privacy, it’s at least a step in the right direction.
It won’t stop Facebook receiving your activity from businesses that you visit in the future, just clear the history up till now. But after clearing your history, you can manage future activity to try to stop Facebook gaining such data from other organisations again.
And it’s easy to clear that history in a few clicks.
How to use the Off-Facebook tool on the mobile app (phone, tablet)
First, login to the Facebook app.
Now click the Settings option. On mobile, tap the three lines in the bottom right (fun fact: this icon is also known as the ‘hamburger’). Settings is down near the bottom of the options the hamburger gives you.
The part you need is called “Your Facebook information”, and it’s a fair scroll down the long list, past Account Settings, Security, and Privacy.
In “Your Facebook information” there’s an option called “Off-Facebook activity” that allows you to view or clear activity from businesses and organisations that you visit off Facebook. Tap that.
The next page “Your off-Facebook activity” tells you more about the tool, and gives you further options.
Before it lets you do anything, it asks you to reauthenticate your password. As you are already in the Facebook app, this is legitimate, so go ahead.
If you tap the app icons or “Manage your off-Facebook activity”, the next screen lists the apps and websites that have shared your activity.
Here you can “Clear history” to clear your off-Facebook activity from your account. It may log you out of apps such as Spotify if you used Facebook to log in to them. You can just re-log in next time you use such apps.
Click “Clear history”.
How to use the Off-Facebook tool on your computer (laptop, PC or Mac)
First, login to Facebook.
Now click the Settings option. On a computer, you’ll find Settings under the dropdown icon at the top-right of the page.
The first screen you’ll see is your “General Account Settings”. To the left of these is a list starting with “General”. Tap on “Your Facebook information”.
Here you will find more options, including the one you need to click: “Off-Facebook activity”.
To the right is a list of options of “What you can do”.
Before it lets you do anything, it asks you to reauthenticate your password. As you are already in Facebook, this is legitimate, so go ahead.
If you tap the app icons or “Manage your off-Facebook activity”, the next screen lists the apps and websites that have shared your activity.
Here you can “Clear history” to clear your off-Facebook activity from your account. It may log you out of apps such as Spotify if you used Facebook to log in to them. You can just re-log in next time you use such apps.
Click “Clear history”.
Manage future off-Facebook activity
Before you clear your history on either mobile app or computer you can also download your information and manage future activity.
This will let you turn off future off-Facebook activity.
We’d recommend coming back to the Clear History feature every now and again to check anyway.
Simon was Editor of Macworld from the dark days of 1995 to the triumphant return of Steve Jobs and the launch of the iPhone. His desk is a test bench for tech accessories, from USB-C and Thunderbolt docks to chargers, batteries, Powerline adaptors and Fitbits.
