facebook login page my account

facebook login page my account

Facebook Login:

                                     

There's more data to protect than just your Facebook profile. USA TODAY



Facebook has tightened its process for developers that let users 'sign in with Facebook.'(Photo: Carl Court, Getty Images)


If you worry about your data on Facebook—a reasonable anxiety after a round of revelations of past privacy breaches — how nervous should you be about logging in to other sites using your Facebook account?

The option to sign into other sites (USA TODAY among them) with your Facebook account is widespread, and adopting it isn’t crazy. But you should evaluate how much of your Facebook profile each site sees — and consider other ways to ease logging in around the Web.

More: Delete Facebook? It's a lot more complicated than that

More: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: 'My mistake' for abuse of voter info

More: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he's left Facebook over data collection
Reasons to use Facebook Login

The biggest reason to rely on this Facebook Login option is the least flattering: You’re terrible at passwords. Not letting Facebook handle this authentication — what’s called a “social login” — often leads people to choose a simple password or reuse a password from another site.


Either choice weakens your account at the site you could have logged into via Facebook. Password reuse also risks every other account with the same password — it only takes one data breach to leave them all open.

Assuming you set a reasonably strong password for your Facebook account and protect it with two-step verification (in which you confirm an unusual login with a one-time code sent to your phone), Facebook Login effectively ends those security worries. The other site never sees your Facebook password; instead, the social network sends it a temporary token confirming that it’s you.
Reasons not to

Many users have taken Facebook up on this shortcut. The customer-management firm Gigya reported that in the fourth quarter of 2015, Facebook Login constituted 62% of the social-login market. A similar firm, LoginRadius, found an even higher share for Facebook in that quarter, 68%.


But Facebook Login lets the other site see at least your name, profile image and e-mail address. It probably gets more: Facebook didn’t limit the default data handover to those basics until March 21, when Zuckerberg announced policy changes after news broke of Cambridge Analytica’s alleged data heist through a Facebook app.

Facebook has since announced a tighter approval process for sites seeking access to your information beyond your public profile.

To see how sites see you through Facebook Login, inspect your apps settings. To get to them in a browser, click or tap the downward-facing triangle at the top right and select Settings; In Android, tap the three-line button at the top right and then Account settings; In iOS, tap the three-line button at the bottom right, then Settings, then Account Settings.

In either app, tap Apps; in a browser, choose Apps and Websites. “Logged in with Facebook” will list apps and sites on your account. Click or tap each to check its access and curtail it if the site ignored Facebook’s advice, “Only ask for the permissions you need.”



Life-sized cutouts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are placed by the advocacy group Avaaz on the lawn of the United States Capitol in Washington on April 10, 2018, ahead of Zuckerberg's appearance before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Jack Gruber, USA TODAY
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 9, 2018, to meet with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Zuckerberg will testify Tuesday before a joint hearing of the Commerce and Judiciary Committees about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election. J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP
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Facebook's Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before Congress in wake of the controversy over the leak of users' data. This is not the first time Zuckerberg faces concerns about privacy on the popular social site. But it was prompted by news Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of tens of millions of Facebook users to sway the U.S. presidential election. Click ahead to see Zuckerberg through the years. Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY
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Lawmakers expressed anger last fall when Facebook and other social media companies sent their attorneys rather than their CEOs to testify about Russia's use of their platforms to meddle in the 2016 election. Zuckerberg only agreed to testify this week under intense pressure from Congress and continuing privacy breach revelations. Mladen Antonov
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Zuckerberg meets with Matt Prestbury, the administrator of a closed Facebook group called Black Fathers. FACEBOOK
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Mark Zuckerberg met with 18 Facebook users the company brought to Menlo Park, Calif., to help mark the social network's 12th birthday. Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY
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Zuckerburg obliges with selfie at the anniversary party. Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY
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Mark Zuckerberg meets with a group of entrepreneurs and innovators during a round-table discussion at Cortex Innovation Community technology hub in St. Louis in November. Facebook said on April 5 that it has shut down a feature that let people search for users if they had their phone number or email address. Zuckerberg said the company had tried “rate limiting” the searches, which restricted how many searches someone can conduct at one time. But he said this was circumvented by bad actors cycling through multiple IP addresses. Jeff Roberson, AP
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The 33-year-old billionaire was born on May 14th, 1984, in White Plains, N.Y. His parents, Karen and Edward, are a psychiatrist and dentist, respectively. He showed academic excellence early on, attending Phillips Exeter Academy and winning awards in math, science by his junior year. Even before entering Harvard he was known as programming wizkid. Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY
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Pope Francis meets Zuckerberg at the Santa Marta residence in Vatican City. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke says the two discussed “how to use communication technologies to alleviate poverty, encourage a culture of encounter, and make a message of hope arrive, especially to those most in need.’’ L'Osservatore Romano via AP
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Zuckerberg hugs President Obama during the 2016 Global Entrepeneurship Summit at Stanford University on June 24, 2016. Justin Sullivan, Getty Images
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In 2016, Mark Zuckerberg and D.J. Koh, Samsung's president of mobile communications Business, met in Barcelona at the annual Mobile World Congress. The event hosts some of the world's largest communication companies, with many unveiling their latest phones and gadgets. David Ramos, Getty Images
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi goes in for a hug with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg after a townhall meeting at Facebook headquarters on Sept. 27, 2015. Susana Bates, AFP/Getty Images
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Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and the country's Internet chief, Lu Wei, talk with Zuckerberg during a gathering at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., in September 2015. Xi and top executives from U.S. and Chinese companies discussed a range of issues, including trade relations, intellectual property protection, regulation transparency and clean energy, according to published reports. Ted S. Warren, Getty Images
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Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan were married in Palo Alto, Calif., on May 19, 2012. The ceremony took place in Zuckerberg's backyard before guests who all thought they were there to celebrate Chan's graduation from medical school. The couple met while attending Harvard University. Allyson Magda, AP
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Zuckerberg and Chan welcomed their new daughter, Max, in 2015. The philanthropists announced they would give away 99% of their Facebook stock, worth $45 billion. The couple welcomed their second daughter in 2017. Mark Zuckerberg
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Zuckerberg and Obama at a town hall meeting on April 20, 2011, at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto. Mark Zuckerberg
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Zuckerberg on a screen in Times Square moments after he rang the Opening Bell for the Nasdaq on May 18, 2012. When the social network site began trading, its 421 million shares were $38 each. Spencer Platt, Getty Images


Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook home page on Oct. 18, 2010. "The Wall Street Journal" reported many popular applications on Facebook were violating the social network's rules and transmitting identifying information about users to advertising and Internet tracking companies. The newspaper said it conducted an investigation and found that the issue affected tens of millions of Facebook application users, including people who set their profiles to be completely private. Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, told reporters at a forum in Dubai on Oct. 17, 2010, that privacy was the company's top concern and it would continue to give people more controls. Karen Bleier, AFP/Getty Images