FACEBOOK NO LONGER GRANTS ACCESS TO CERTAIN APPS

All of the app makers who did not submit to Facebook's review process by August 1st deadline will be cut off.

Facebook has announced that it is shutting off access to its application programming interface, the developer platform that lets app makers access user data, for hundreds of thousands of inactive apps. The company had set an August 1st deadline back in May, during its F8 developer conference, for developers and businesses to resubmit apps to an internal review; a process that involves signing new contracts around user data collection and verifying one's authenticity.

The goal is to ensure that third-party software on Facebook was in line with the company's data privacy rule and that new restrictions will be put in place in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now, after it identified numerous apps that were either inactive or from developers who had not submitted the software for review, Facebook is cutting off those apps' access to its Platform API.

"We’d encourage apps that are still being used but have not been submitted for app review to do so now. However, to ensure all apps currently in use go through our review process, we will be proactively queueing up apps for review," writes Ime Archibong, the company’s vice president of product partnerships, in a blog post. "Where we need more information, developers will have a limited amount of time to respond. If we don’t hear back within that timeframe, we will remove the app’s access to APIs that require approval."

However, the developers using the Facebook API will not lose their access while their app is in the queue for review, or while Facebook is in the process of reviewing the app, so long as the software of the app complies with its revised policies.