Ahead of Data Privacy Day on January 28, we’re showcasing the work that goes into preserving the privacy of people who use and depend on our apps and technologies, and encouraging people to utilize the many privacy controls we offer. From ongoing improvements to our privacy program to strides being made in end-to-end encryption, here’s a look at what we’ve been up to and where we’re going.

Showing Our Work

Today, we’re publishing the third iteration of our Privacy Progress Update, which we publish each year to demonstrate technical and operational improvements we’ve made. This latest version includes details on privacy governance, consumer-facing privacy controls and innovative privacy solutions like privacy aware infrastructure. We remain as committed as ever to putting people’s privacy first in everything we do.

Building Educational Tools

We launched Privacy Center alongside our easier to understand Privacy Policy last year to give people a place where they could learn more about our approach to privacy across our apps and technologies. Privacy Center is now fully available on Facebook. We’ve also added two new modules to Privacy Center — one focused on safety, where people can learn more about how they can protect themselves and their information; and one focused on privacy for teens, where people can learn about the special protections we offer for young people.

Giving People Control

We want  people to understand their options when it comes to privacy on our apps. That’s why we’re notifying people on Facebook to take a Privacy Checkup to review some of their important privacy settings. Whether you’re tweaking your audience settings or setting up two-factor authentication, it’s always worth examining your settings on a regular basis, and people can also now set a recurring reminder for Privacy Checkup to be automatically notified to use the control.

Protecting Teen Privacy

In November, we introduced updates on Facebook and Instagram that further protect teens online. Now, everyone who is under the age of 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into more private settings when they join Facebook. Earlier this year, we announced that we’re further restricting the options advertisers have to reach teens, as well as the information we use to show ads to teens. Age and location will be the only information about a teen that we’ll use to show them ads. We’ve also added a new privacy page with more information for teens about the tools and privacy settings they can use across our technologies.

Advancing Private Messaging

We’ve introduced a number of new privacy features on WhatsApp to give you even more control. You can now leave group messages without notifying everyone, choose who can see when you’re online and prevent screenshots on View Once messages. And on Messenger, we’re announcing new product features for your end-to-end encrypted chats, as well as increased testing for default end-to-end encryption.

Prioritizing Privacy as We Help Build the Metaverse

The metaverse presents an opportunity for us to build privacy into a new technology from the ground up and we’ve been working with experts in academia, civil rights groups and industry organizations to help ensure we’re innovating in this new space responsibly. We are committed to baking in strong privacy protections from the start, and developing transparent tools to let people be in control of their experience. This guided our development of features like eye-tracking and Natural Facial Expressions in our Meta Quest Pro virtual reality headset.

We took a similar approach with our Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, which feature an LED light to let people know when photos or videos are being captured and a power switch to toggle the glasses on and off. Visit our privacy microsite for more information on these features and tips on how people can use the glasses safely and responsibly. We look forward to sharing more updates on how we’re helping to build the metaverse with privacy in mind.