During online shopping, searching or using apps, users’ data is not limited to that platform only. Meta (parent company of Facebook-Instagram) also receives user activity from external websites and apps, which is called off-Meta activity. Although the company claims that this improves advertising and content, users have the option to view, clear, or completely turn off this tracking.
What is off-meta activity?
A feature of Meta Your Activity uses Meta technology to track information about what you do on any website or app outside of Facebook or Instagram. Suppose you viewed shoes on an e-commerce site, then it is possible that the same data gets shared with Meta and after some time you start seeing advertisements for shoes on Instagram or Facebook. This is called off-meta activity.
How to know which websites are sharing your data?
To provide transparency to users, Meta has given a special section in the Accounts Center, where you can see which websites and apps outside Instagram and Facebook are sharing your information with Meta. For this on Facebook, go to Settings and Privacy by going to the profile icon, then open Settings and enter the Accounts Center from there. After this, go to Your information and permissions section and tap on Your activity off Meta technologies. The process is almost the same in Insta also. Tap the profile icon, open the menu, go to Settings, then open the Off Meta Activity section at the end of the Account Center. Here you’ll see a list of all the websites and apps that have recently shared data about your online activity with Meta.
How to delete or disconnect data?
If you do not want a particular website or app to share your information further, you can disconnect it individually from this Off-Meta Activity section. If users wish, they can also choose the option to remove multiple sources at once. Apart from this, Clear Activity option is available, through which the off meta data associated with the meta account can be cleared. Although Meta says that some information may not be completely deleted but may be kept in anonymous form for analytics and system improvements, but this data is not linked to your profile.
How to stop tracking completely?
Meta also allows users to turn off off-meta activity completely. After you turn on this setting, external websites and apps won’t be able to automatically share data about your new online activity with Facebook or Instagram. The effect of this may be that the ads you see may not be as personalized as before, but in return you have much stronger control over your digital privacy and decide when and how your data is used.
