New authorization process for Facebook apps

Ten months ago, when Facebook agreed to make some changes to its platform and add new privacy safeguards in order to comply with the requests made by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, one of the changes that was agreed upon was the retrofitting of the social network’s application platform in such a way that every application that the user want to add to its profile will have to obtain express consent from the user for each category of personal information it wishes to access.

Yesterday, Facebook made good on that promise and rolled out the new authorization process for applications and Facebook-integrated websites. From now on, when you install a new application or first log in to an external website with your Facebook account, you will be faced with a similar request:

Applications usually have default access to the public parts of your profile, but to access the private sections, they have to explicitly ask for your permission.

You can define which information will be private and which public by modifying your account’s Privacy Settings.