Facebook Privacy
Social networking website Facebook is great for sharing information and photo's and for letting friends know what you're up to, but it's easy to forget to make sure that only the people you want to can find things out about you.
Many people have hundreds of photo's and videos hosted on the site, not to mention detailed information such as your date of birth, location and sometimes even your address - basic information you might think, but that could be enough for somebody to make you a victim of identity theft. Fortunately Facebook has loads of privacy settings to make sure that your information is only available to the people you want to be able to see it.
Here are our 7 steps to making sure you stay safe on Facebook...
1 - Settings
To change the privacy settings of your Facebook profile click on Account and then Privacy Settings to begin securing your information.
2 - Privacy Centre
Here privacy settings are divided into a number of sections, each with a variety of options that enable you to lockdown your content to just friends or even only particular friends. The sections include; Profile, Search, and Applications. You can also block people or email addresses from ever knowing that you're on Facebook.
3 - Profile Privacy
Click on Profile to see the settings about who can see your profile information. The options are broken down into sections and you just use the dropdown box alongside each option to customise each section.
4 - Easily Contactable
Many people use Facebook for getting in touch with old friends or promoting their business or work. You do however need to be wary of letting the whole world see your email and website addresses as you could end up drowning in spam. Click on Contact Information to change this.
5 - Applications and Websites
If you love your games and applications on Facebook that's great but just make sure that you're not letting the 3rd-party applications view your profile and being able to harvest your information.
6 - Search
On the Search page you can control who is able to search for you and what information they will see about you when they do. One of the most important options to look for in here is Public Search Listing. With this enabled people who put your name into search engines such as Google or Bing will be able to find your profile. Nine times out of ten you'll want to turn this off.
Make sure you're happy with the settings on these pages and your information will be safe from prying eyes!
