A social media app called LYKA is fast gaining popularity in the Philippines due to its enticing rewards system. Some users, however, have expressed concern about their privacy and want to delete their LYKA accounts. So how do you deactivate or delete your LYKA account permanently?
LYKA is a “free social media platform that allows users to connect, discover new things, and share their interests with other individuals.” LYKA offers a “Digital Point System” that rewards users with “gems” for engagement on the platform. These gems can then be exchanged for items with their partners stores, redeemed for gifts at the LYKA MALL, and shared with friends or followers.
With such an attractive rewards systems, it’s no wonder that LYKA has gained a massive userbase in the Philippines in just a few months. It also helps that the Hong Kong-based company has hired several local celebrities and influencers to promote and endorse the new app. But even without celebrity endorsement, the promise of exciting rewards proved to be attractive enough for many Filipinos to download and install the app. After all, who doesn’t want to receive free items and goodies just by posting photos and liking posts?
Nevertheless, some users are keen to delete their LYKA accounts due to privacy concerns. This was after a Reddit user revealed that the popular social media app was accessing the phone camera in the background. In response, LYKA released a statement saying that it was an iOS 14 bug that they have already fixed. The company also reiterated that user privacy is its utmost priority and that the information of its users are strictly kept confidential.
According to LYKA’s privacy policy, the company discloses its users’ personal data to partners and service providers, including business partners. LYKA also shares personal data with marketing platforms such as Google and Facebook in order to conduct targeted advertising to its users.
To be fair, it is not only LYKA that sells personal data; other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are doing it, too. Most people have no issues with sharing their personal information with these websites as long as they abide with data privacy laws.
If you don’t feel comfortable with sharing your data with LYKA or if you don’t trust the company enough, you can take steps to delete your LYKA account and optionally, request your personal data to be removed from their servers. In any case, you don’t have to do anything because LYKA automatically deletes accounts that have been inactive for four months.
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How to Delete Your LYKA Account
At the moment, LYKA doesn’t provide an option to delete or deactivate your account. Despite that, you can try to limit LYKA’s access to your personal data and uninstall the LYKA app so that it can no longer track your activities.
Step 1: Unlink Your Facebook Account (Optional)
Follow this step if you signed up or logged in using your Facebook account. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.
What we’ll do is to remove LYKA’s access to your Facebook information. Removing or unlinking LYKA from your Facebook account will not delete any information that you previously shared with LYKA, but will revoke its access to private information that you’ll add in the future.
To start, go to the Facebook menu (click the hamburger icon at the upper-right corner of the Facebook app) and tap Settings & Privacy and then Settings.
Under the Security heading, choose Apps and Websites.
Select Logged in with Facebook.
You will see a list of apps and websites that you’ve used Facebook to login to. Under the Active tab, select Lyka by checking the box next to it.
After you’ve checked the box, tap the Remove button.
Check the box that says, “Also delete all posts, photos and videos on Facebook these apps and websites may have published on your behalf.”
Tap Remove to unlink LYKA from your Facebook account.
Removing LYKA from Facebook will not delete your account but will prevent it from making additional requests for your private information. However, LYKA will still have access to information that you previously shared with them. You can still use LYKA just like before, but you will no longer be able to login to your LYKA account until you grant them access to Facebook again.
Step 2: Change Your Profile Information (Optional)
Since you want to stop using LYKA and delete your account, you can change your profile information to something else to render it useless. Keep in mind that LYKA already has your personal information that you entered during registration (or when you used Facebook to login), so changing your profile information will not erase the personal data that you’ve already provided to LYKA.
Open the LYKA app and go to the Profile tab. Tap Edit Profile on your profile screen.
Under Account Information, select the information that you want to change, such as your name, email address and birthdate. Changing your email and phone requires verification, so you may want to use a throwaway email or mobile number for this purpose.
You can also replace your profile photo with a picture that doesn’t show your face. After editing your profile information, click Save Changes.
Step 3: Uninstall the LYKA App
The final step is to uninstall the LYKA app from your phone. This will not automatically delete your LYKA account, but it will prevent you from using the app. After four months of inactivity, your account will be deleted automatically by the system.
To uninstall the app, press the LYKA app icon and select Uninstall (or Delete for iPhone or iPad). You can also uninstall the app in Google Play by clicking Uninstall.
Step 4: Request Deletion of Your Personal Data (Optional)
If you are really concerned about how LYKA handles your data, you may request them to delete your personal information from their servers. What you can do is to send an email to [email protected] indicating that you want to have your LYKA account deleted and your personal data removed. Don’t forget to include your LYKA username and full name for verification purposes.
Under the Data Privacy Act of 2012, data subjects (persons from which personal information is collected) have the “right to be forgotten” or the right to request erasure or removal of their data from the data controller (the entity that collects and processes personal data). Refusal to comply with data removal requests is a violation of data privacy laws with corresponding fines and penalties.
Wrapping Up
Deleting your LYKA account may seem impossible due to the lack of a feature to delete or deactivate your account. But you don’t have to jump through hoops just to delete your LYKA account. Follow the aforementioned steps to deactivate or delete your LYKA account and you will no longer have to worry about your personal data and privacy. Hopefully, LYKA will soon provide an easier and more convenient way to delete your account directly on the app.
