Deadline For Obligatory Platform Compliance Necessities

Over the past few years, we’ve made a number of changes to our platform to further protect people’s data. Some of these include improvements to app review, updating our developer terms and conditions and platform guidelines, and introducing data usage reviews and privacy ratings.

Following an announcement dated July 22, 2021, we notified some developers via email and through their developer dashboard that they were responsible for conducting a privacy assessment. If this requirement applies to you, you must take steps to avoid enforcement and possible loss of access to our platform or other app disruptions.

Specifically, you may need to do the following:

Data protection rating

If your app falls under the privacy rating scope, you or the person managing your app would have received an email and a message in your app’s alert inbox letting you know that it is time to complete the assessment. You would also have shown privacy rating notifications on your app dashboard. Apps with only basic permissions are not required to complete the privacy assessment.

Here we’ve outlined the steps you need to take to prepare for the privacy assessment and what to expect.

Compliance check

We regularly review apps for compliance by assessing how an app uses its current developer products, including permissions and features, user experience, and data usage, among others. We usually do these reviews without the developers having to do anything. In some cases, we ask developers to submit screencasts, schedule live tours of their apps, and / or list their app in iOS and Android app stores to complete this process. If your app needs to meet these additional requirements, you or the person managing your app should have received an email and a message in your app’s alert inbox and a notification on your app dashboard with instructions on what to do next.

If you haven’t received a warning, notification, or prompt on your dashboard for both the privacy assessment and compliance check, make sure your app contact email is up to date, your admin inbox monitored and check your app dashboard to confirm admins. We encourage you to review all of your alerts on your developer dashboard. You can also go to developer.facebook.com/support for assistance or ask a question directly through your Business Manager account.

Failure to take action can result in loss of platform access or other app interruptions. We also urge you to keep your app contact email address up to date to avoid missing email notifications in the future.

What to do if your app loses access to the platform

In some cases, apps can lose access due to non-compliance or non-responses. In any case, you should reply to the email we sent you. If you cannot find your email notification or want to object to enforcement action, please visit our Appeals for Developers page. If your app loses access, you can also take the following steps:

Data protection rating
If you’ve received an enforcement warning email, you can respond with a request to extend the warning period. We will review your application and, if necessary, grant an extension. If you’ve received a warning, haven’t responded yet, or have requested an extension and we are taking enforcement action, please see the enforcement email for instructions on how to file an appeal.

Compliance check
If you have been asked to submit a screencast and was forced to fail to submit or respond, your app will be put into developer mode and its API access will be suspended. If so, you can submit a screencast and reactivate your application on your developer interface – without any further help from Facebook. Instructions on how to format and send your screencast have been emailed to you. If you have any further questions, please reply to the email we send you.

Our commitment to privacy and data security is a responsibility we share with all developers in our ecosystem, and as always, we’re grateful for your partnership.

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