How To Keep Your Facebook Profile Safe (Important Privacy Settings)

How To Keep Your Facebook Profile Safe 🔥 

(Important Privacy Settings)

Facebook
Photo by icon0.com from Pexels

We all want to keep our data safe and away from the reach of malicious personnel or Intruders. Online privacy has become the cause of some of the most heated debates in the past couple of years. Facebook has always been at the center of all these "privacy breach" incidents because of the sheer potential for "data". 

But even after all these major issues, facebook has always assured users that they are doing all they can to ensure their safety and privacy. And for that they are always introducing new and advanced settings that help increase the protection of their userbase.

Here are 5 important settings that you should change on your Facebook profile right now!

Note - All screenshots except in 'Locking Your Profile' are from web version of FB, these settings are also available on phone version but I showed the site settings.

1. Lock Your Profile (Phones Only)

Facebook recently introduced Locking feature for profiles. This is without a doubt the best way to keep your profile safe from unwanted attention.

Under this setting, only your friends will be able to see your complete profile. Only a few number of details will be visible to the public. (Not in your Friend List)

Only friends can see your full sized profile picture and cover. People not in friends with you can see maximum 5 profile details such as Hometown and Education.

I was actually searching for this feature on Web version but I couldn't find it and then I saw it on my Android phone. It is available in the phone app only it seems.
To lock your Facebook profile follow these steps on a phone --

• Go to 'Settings & privacy' under your profile

settings and privacy

• Select 'Settings'

• Under 'Privacy' select 'Profile Locking'

• Select 'Lock Your Profile'

lock profile

This only helps you keep unwanted guests away, but it wont help you if some other site or app is already using your data ! Below are some options for that.

2. Check Where You Are Logged In (Web)

You should always keep track of all the devices that you are currently logged in on. Be it you laptop, your phone, your pc, tablet or any other device.

Don't leave your account signed in on a device you don't use anymore, don't have or have lost it. 

To check "Where You Are Logged In" see the steps - 

• Go to 'Settings & privacy' in your profile (click profile picture on pc) 

Settings & privacy

• Select 'Settings'

• Select 'Security and Login'

Where you're logged in

• Check tab 'Where you're logged in'

Logout of all sessions

If you see an unknown location in the list of locations, that you don't recognize then click on "Logout of all sessions". And then I recommend you change your Password.

3. Create Alerts For Unknown Login (pc)

If there is a log in to you profile from a new and unknown location Facebook will alert you by giving notifications. This is a must and should always be on to keep safe from unknown logins.

Even me personally, I have had Fb alert me about unknown logins a couple of times. Usually they are my own logins if I go to a new city, or state but nevertheless its great to have this setting always ON!

To change this follow these steps -

• Scroll down and Select 'Setting up extra security' on same page where you saw 'Where you're logged in'

• Make sure option is ON, if you click on "edit" then you will see some extra options (ways to send alerts in)

security alerts

4. Privacy Shortcuts (pc)

You don't need to do this if you have already locked your profile because it covers all of these settings at once. Control who can see what you share - You can change who can see what you share in settings.

• Go to 'Privacy' tab in 'Settings' and select 'Check a few important settings' in 'Privacy Shortcuts'

Privacy shortcuts

• Click on 'Who can see your content' card

• Phone number check - Phone numbers are always private but still you should check it once and change it if it is not private.

check phone number

• On the next screen - Set who can see future posts to 'friends'

Limit posts to "friends"

Again, all these settings are not needed if you locked your profile

5. Remove Apps You Don't Use Any More From Your Profile

This is very important to keep your data safe from malicious sites and app that you might have accessed in the past. Even if the application was user friendly at the time you used it, who knows what the company is up to now. 

Chances are, you used a site or app that asked you for access to you Facebook data while logging in or signing in. If not recently, I am sure at least at some point you did it in the past.

Even in my account last time I checked, I found a lot of older apps and sites that I used years ago and they were still connected to my Facebook account. The problem is that a lot of these sites and apps could potentially change owners, And that could drastically affect how that particular app or site behaves.

So you should definitely remove any site or app that you don't and won't use in the future. 

To remove such apps, sites follow these 2 simple steps -

• Select 'Your data settings on facebook' in 'Privacy Checkup' section

• Remove all the unnecessary Apps and Sites.

Remove unused apps and sites

Optional Setting - Facial Recognition

There is one more thing that you might want to turn off if you feel unsafe or uncomfortable letting a Facebook use your facial data.

It's called Face Recognition. It basically detects your face in images by keeping data of your face features and matching them to photos you or your friends post. This helps in tagging and managing photos.

You can turn off the setting if you don't like it. Follow these steps -

• Under 'Your data settings on facebook' tab, after removing unused apps you will see the face recognition tab when you click next.

Privacy checkup

• Toggle the switch to turn it off if you want.

Face Recognition

And those were the tips. Make sure to follow these steps to ensure the best protection for your data on Facebook.

Thanks for reading ❤