Facebook users can now see if and when you have read their group posts. Privacy anyone?

Facebook quietly introduced new functionality onto its site last week that could have some worried about their online privacy.

The social network is rolling out the ability to see if and when someone has seen a post on a Facebook group.

For now you can still snoop on the profiles and pictures of your ex-partners (their privacy settings permitting) to keep a track – without them knowing – of how miserable their life has become since they split up with you.

But if you are in the same Facebook group (perhaps related to a school, club or joint interest), you can see both whether someone has seen a particular post and at what time they saw it.

So, although you can configure Facebook to not tell your online friends when you are online (effectively hiding from their instant messaging chats, and maintaining a pretence that you have a social life rather than being…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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