Eleven percent of crimes identity theft occurs online
[Let's face it: Almost everyone is on Facebook, and if you're not, chances are you'll succumb to social pressure to finally sign. It is a great way to connect with friends and family around the world and easily share your experiences with others. However, it is not a good idea to share personal information willy nilly.
Facebook has made a number of updates privacy settings since we wrote this popular post in 2008. So here we have compiled an updated list of six ways to manage your privacy on Facebook and keep your personal information:
1. Limit the amount of personal information available on your profile.
A survey of Facebook users commissioned by NextAdvisor.com found that 27% of interviewees is their full name, date of birth, phone number and email address on their Facebook profile. A further 8% of respondents included all this information and their physical address on their profile. Many Facebook users also list other personal data such as their spouse or significant other name or birthday. In the hands of identity thieves, this type of information can be dangerous.
For example, an identity thief may be able to use your address and phone number to submit a change of address form with the United States Postal Service and have your mail forwarded. This would allow access to more sensitive information in order to open financial accounts or others on your behalf.
Savvy Identity thieves can use contextual information in your profile hack into online accounts. It can make the switch out names and passwords that you can use potential users. Once an account line if e-mail, credit card or other account has been accessed, it can cause even more harm. It just becomes easier for identity thieves: A recently released Android application can hack Facebook accounts if they are open on the same wireless network! Our recommendation is to limit the amount of personal information that is available on your Facebook profile:
- Never enter your full birth date, phone number or physical address on your Facebook profile. Your true friends and associates probably already know this information, including on your profile will only increase your risk of being a victim.
- Limit the amount of contextual clues password on your profile pages. Identity thieves know that many people use their birthday, spouse or significant other name or a birthday, an anniversary, the maiden name of the mother, the name of the animal, or other information as personal passwords on their personal accounts. It is also a good idea to make sure your online passwords do not include these types of personal items.
2. proactively manage your privacy settings.
There are many components to manage your privacy settings of Facebook. But we have broken down for you here:
Sharing
Facebook main goal is sharing. However, like many people, you might have some things that you only want to share with only your networks, your friends, or just a chosen few. Fortunately, Facebook makes this easy. When you click on "Privacy Settings" under the "Account" tab, you will see a list of what you share and with whom you share it.
The Privacy Settings page begins with a reminder that you can choose who sees your updates of individual state while you download status. There are just a drop-down menu next to the button "Post" which gives you the opportunity to know who will see that the individual state down.
After that you can set your privacy by setting default (in case you do not want to choose a setting each time you post or for applications that do not let you choose.) It gives you a sharing option with a custom setting you can control public, friends.
Below are 5 sections that you can customize to help keep your private Facebook page. They are:
How do you connect
By default, your name, profile picture, gender and networks are visible to everyone, but you can change who sees those when you click "Edit your profile" on your Facebook page. The section How you connect allows you to adjust who sees your e-mail and phone number, which can send you requests friends and who can send you messages. you can set everything to "friends only," but you want to reduce the chances of old friends and colleagues to find you. instead, put them based privately, you think the information is or should be.
Profile and Tagging
the following command is on tagged items. When you are tagged in a photo or video and want to change the default setting you selected for tags on the page of privacy, remove the label, which will also prevent him from running on your profile. Remember that this does not keep the owner of the photo or video to share the image (without your tag) with people who are not your friends.
Ads, Apps and Websites
When you click on ads, websites Apps and, one of the most useful tools is above. "Applications you use" allows you to disable all applications or remove unwanted or spam applications. You may be surprised just how many applications you have said "yes". If you find those that seem suspicious or you simply do not want, click to enlarge. You can then display the last time the application accesses your data or remove the application entirely.
But perhaps the most important for your privacy is how your information is used by other sites and applications. Click "Edit Settings" next to "How people bring your info to apps they use." It will bring up a pop-up window that you can use to control which of your information is available to applications, games and websites when your friends use them. We recommend that you clear these items.
Then you can control who can see your game and application activity. This button works well as the other buttons of the main privacy page.
If you're not wild about the websites you visit know a lot about you, change your settings customization "instant" and uncheck the box at the bottom. This prevents some Facebook partner sites to access information that you set as visible to everyone.
Finally, we recommend that you disable public research. This determines if the information that you share with everyone shows in searches on and off Facebook. If someone Googles you want your Facebook profile to appear? If it is a childhood friend, maybe, but if an identity thief, you might think otherwise. There is a small "Show preview" link here, too, so you can see how your page look like someone arriving at your profile from a search engine.
Limit the audience for past posts
This option allows you to manage all your previous posts, for example, those you have published before Facebook allowed individual options job sharing. The option essentially keeps things as they were or move to your messages being passed only available to friends.
Blocked People and Apps
There are many reasons why you might want to block someone or an application to view your Facebook profile. So when you click "Manage Blocks" at the bottom center of the main privacy page, you can enter the names of your Facebook friends or email addresses of people who are not your friends and click "Block User . " This means that a person can not be your friend or interact with you on Facebook, except for indoor applications or games use both of you.
You can also block the invitations of this screen. Is it a friend who lives across the continent, spammed with invitations that you can not possibly accept, or another fine pal keep inviting you to play FarmVille even if you refused several times? Type the name into the fields to block their invitations.
Finally, you can view your applications blocked on this page. Blocking an application means it can not contact you or use your information more. To block an application, however, you must go to the page of the Facebook application and click "Block app."
These are our best suggestions for the use of Facebook privacy settings. CEO Mark Zuckerburg claims that users can expect privacy of Facebook advertisers. Facebook does not sell personal information to its advertisers, but some ads include a Like button, and some or a pair of a friend's profile picture who "liked" the ad or the company with her make it more relevant to you. And when you see the Facebook content on another site, this site does not receive any of your profile information.
Yet with all the data that flows there and the potential for identity thieves socially conceived in our lives, consider a protection service against identity theft.
3. Only accept applications from persons of friends you know.
According to another recent survey commissioned by Facebook NextAdvisor.com, 49% of respondents said they accept some or all friend requests they receive from people they do not know . What many Facebook users may not realize is that by accepting those friend requests they do not know they are potentially open to identity theft or related crimes. In general, we suggest that Facebook users accept friend requests from people they already know or whose identity they can verify by other means. Here are some ways to add safely new friends on Facebook:
- When you receive a friend request from people you know already, make sure they are who they say that they are emailing them or giving them a phone call. It's easy for someone to set up a phony profile under the name of someone you know and trust to extract additional information from you.
- If you do not recognize the person who is the friend request, do not hesitate to ask how he or she knows you by sending a Facebook message before accepting. If you get no response or a suspect, you can investigate further or simply ignore the friend request.
- Some experts believe that social networks like Facebook can become the next target of scams by sophisticated phishing designed to steal your online passwords or other personal information. If you receive a friend request or other information by e-mail claiming to be from Facebook, log in to your Facebook account directly instead of clicking on a link in the email to verify that communication is actually ahead of the Facebook system.
4. Limit the amount of check-ins and "time and place" of the data you expose.
Facebook offers users many opportunities to spread their time and place to their friends ??. Whether an update status or single detailed itinerary, criminals can use information about your current location or to come to victimize you in a number of ways.
For example, if you publicly announce a holiday out of town or planning to attend an event, criminals can use this information to determine when your home can be more sensitive to burglary. This could open up a number of forms of identity theft or worse. Also exercise caution when you "check in" using Facebook Places somewhere. If you verify that you are at a remote location, you may suffer similar consequences.
In general, we strongly recommend that users of Facebook do not publish details about the location and schedules.
5. Remember that even people you may know the identity thieves.
Unfortunately, several recent studies show that a significant number of identity theft victims know the person who assaulted them.
Javelin Research found that shocking 43% of identity theft crimes are committed by people known to the victim, such as friends or family members. In addition, the most common perpetrators of identity theft against children are the child's parents.
We strongly recommend that even if you know and trust of all your Facebook friends, you always follow these tips to keep you from falling victim to identity theft.
6. Consider a protection service against identity theft.
Identity theft, both online and in the real world, remains a growing threat to all Americans. We recommend that all consumers plan to use a protection service against the proactive identity theft, LifeLock as Identity Guard or to protect their identity.
Each service protection against identity theft is different, but most do the following :.
- Watch your credit report and other personal information for fraudulent use
- provide insurance against identity theft will refund the fees and expenses you agree to the following victim.
- provide you with copies of your credit report.
You can learn about the various benefits of protective services against identity theft and the specific services that we look by visiting our guide and comparison of protection against theft of services ID.
While social networks like Facebook can be fun and productive services, it is important that users are aware of the risks they pose. Take proactive steps to protect your identity on Facebook will only improve the amount of fun you can have on the service.