It’s almost that time of year again. Wash off the car. Take the cover off the grill. And figure out who has access to your social accounts.
Whether you realize it or not, dozens — if not hundreds — of apps and services have access to your social accounts and can see everything you’re doing online. Tweets, Likes, your location, are all there for the taking. What’s worse, there’s a pretty good chance you unwittingly gave them permission.
On Thursday, this happened to me. I looked at Twitter and noticed that a start-up was tweeting from my account. I immediately deleted the Twitter message and revoked access to the service. But in doing so I noticed that hundreds of old apps have access to my Twitter, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn accounts.
It was time to do a little cleanup.
Just like the spring cleaning rule that says, “If you haven’t worn it in six months, throw it out,” you should use the same edict with your online data: “If you haven’t logged in to an app or site in six months, revoke its access.”
Here are some tips to clean up who has access to all your personal data:
Twitter
If you venture over to Twitter’s “Applications” page you will be able to see a long list of all the apps and services that currently have access to your Twitter profile. If you’re like me, you’ve probably forgotten about many of these apps — or, as I discovered, some of these companies have since been acquired by other companies. While many of these services use this access only to know who you are on another site, many are also collecting data about you.
To be safe hit the “Revoke Access” button for any apps that you haven’t visited in the last few months. Or any that look a little sketchy.
You will want to be especially careful of applications that have the ability to tweet on your behalf. These apps will have a line of text below their logo that say “Permissions: read and write.” My advice: Limit these to only sites you absolutely trust.
Facebook
When I opened up my Facebook account to look at the apps I’ve given permission to, I thought there was a typo on the page because the number was so high. I’ve given 148 apps access to my Facebook profile, which is a whole lot of information about me floating around on the Internet. It’s clearly time for me to do some cleaning here.
To fix who has access to your Facebook profile you will want to log into your account and then click here. The page you will land on is a list of apps that you have used with Facebook before, but this isn’t the full list. To see all of the apps and services, click the link at the bottom that says “Show all apps.”
Now it’s time to start deleting.
This might take a while, but go through and hit the “x” button at the far right next to every single app or service you no longer use. After you click the “x,” a popup will ask if you’re sure you want to remove the app and then it will give you the option to delete any posts by this service that have appeared in your news feed. If you want to remove this data or content, select the check mark and then click the blue “Remove” button. Voila, you’re done.
Now go through those steps again and again until you’ve removed all your unwanted services.
Google
Your list of apps using Google is most likely pretty small, but just to be safe you should take a look at which services are getting access to your data. To see this list, go to Google’s Account Permission page under its security settings.
If you want to remove access to a service, click on the name of the company and then click the “Revoke Access,” button.
LinkedIn
Just like Google, you probably haven’t granted access to too many apps from LinkedIn, but you should still take the time to investigate.
LinkedIn doesn’t make it easy to find this privacy section. You have to start on the website by clicking on your own personal avatar in the top right corner. Then select “Privacy and Settings.” Once on this page, click on the tab at the bottom of the page that says “Groups, Companies and Applications.” (Hang in there, you’re almost done.) Finally, you will want to click “View your applications.”
Deleting an app is easier than finding this section. To do this, you simply check the box next to the app you want to delete and then select the blue “Remove” button at the bottom of the page.
And that’s it. Spring cleaning of your social sites is complete. That is, until next spring.
Cullen Hoback's documentary "Terms and Conditions May Apply" is a scathing look at the abusive, lengthy fine-print that dominates our online lives. If the YouTube trailer and the non-embeddable Guardian trailer are representative, this is an important and timely film. I do quibble with one point -- the movie doesn't distinguish between the stupid license agreements that are a function of a stupid law (for example, requiring LinkedIn users to license the stuff they give to LinkedIn so that LinkedIn can display it) and the ones that are pure greed and venality (AT&T making you agree to extrajudicial wiretapping).
Hoback has an op-ed in today's Guardian where he sets out his thesis with great clarity, and draws the important connection between Patriot Act surveillance and fine-print "agreements." Unfortunately, the video itself seems to be exclusively available through Itunes, which has some pretty dreadful license terms, and mandatory DRM to boot.
At our DC premiere of Terms and Conditions May Apply, Congressman Dennis Kucinich made a surprise appearance in the crowd and went a step further, standing up after the screening and saying the “NSA should be abolished", and that Edward Snowden should get a “ticker-tape parade".
While this speech tickled users on Reddit and got a lot of press, open criticism of the surveillance-industrial complex is far from the norm. And supporting Edward Snowden as a public official seems to be politically cancerous.
But I have hope, and here’s why:
While in DC, I was reminded of something that stuck with me: Congressmen are just people too. When 9/11 happened, they were rushed to protected sites in what must have been a terrifying moment for them. They surely felt like the next target. And then they were asked to pass a bill that would protect America from the kind of horror they had just been put through, first-hand - a bill called 'The Patriot Act'.
It wasn’t passed because they got together and said, “Let’s gut the Constitution". It happened partially from fear and partially from a misguided sense of duty.
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Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old NSA contractor and ex-CIA employee, has revealed that he is behind the series of leaks that have appeared in the Guardian and Washington Post this weekend, which detailed top-secret, over-reaching, and arguably criminal surveillance programs run by America's spies with the cooperation of the Obama administration.
Snowden says he always intended to come forward after the leaks, and to face down the consequences of his actions. He describes himself as a disillusioned Obama supporter who was disappointed after the 2008 election to see America double down on the overreaching spying programs that had worried him when he was with the CIA. He is giving up a comfortable life with a $200,000 salary, a girlfriend, and a home in Hawai'i to blow the whistle on what he views as immoral, out-of-control spy programs. He says he does not want to be at the center of this story; he wants the focus to be on the government's actions.
He is holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong that he has barely left for three weeks. He takes extreme measures to avoid potential eavesdropping and hidden cameras. He believes he will be arrested or possibly killed, and enumerates many ways that this could happen -- rendered by the CIA, imprisoned by the Chinese government, murdered by Tong gangsters or other criminals working for American or Chinese intelligence agencies. But he says he is not afraid, and stands by his choice.
He predicts the government will launch an investigation and "say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become".
The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. "The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won't be able to help any more. That's what keeps me up at night," he said, his eyes welling up with tears...
...But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. "I don't see myself as a hero," he said, "because what I'm doing is self-interested: I don't want to live in a world where there's no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity."
Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA's surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. "What they're doing" poses "an existential threat to democracy", he said...
...For him, it is a matter of principle. "The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to," he said.
His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: "I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation," reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.
He may not see himself as a hero, but I do. Thank you, Mr Snowden.
The American Library Association's "Choose Privacy" week kicks off with a ~20 minute video featuring writers and thinkers talking about the value of privacy in simple, accessible, thought-provoking terms. Included are me, Neil Gaiman, and many others. Produced by Laura Zinger and 20K films, it's a really fine little introduction to subject from the towering heroes of the information revolution: the librarians.
