Click to learn more about author Cathy Nolan.
Do you have Facebook Friends on your personal account that you barely know or who are friends of friends? Maybe it’s time to do some un-friending and review your privacy settings. While some people think they are in a competition to see how many Facebook “friends” they can gather, the smart thing to do is to limit the amount of people who access your personal information.
If you have already added people on Facebook and now you want to limit what they can see, you can add them to a “restricted” list which can be found in the “Friends” menu on the left-hand side of your Facebook feed. Facebook won’t disclose who you have added to your restricted list, but doing this will insure that only the people you consider your “BFF” friends will see posts and profile information unless you make them public.
You can also create custom groups for your family or close personal friends so that you don’t become annoying yourself with oversharing pictures and posts. To create as many groups as you want on your PC, go to “More” next to “Friends” to the left of your newsfeed.
Facebook has a Privacy Checkup so that you can review who can see your profile including your phone number and email address. This is also where you can adjust privacy settings for apps and games you’ve given profile access to, sometimes unwittingly. For blocking apps and games (activities), go to “Settings” click on “Blocking”.
Why go to this trouble? First you want to make sure that fringe-friends are not getting private details of your life and possibly sharing them with their “friends”. People are sometimes surprised how little information an identity thief needs to impersonate you and cause financial harm. Not everyone is security conscious and who knows when a scammer might find out where you are going on vacation, your children’s names and ages, where you work, or some other potentially dangerous private details you’ve posted.
The second reason is that your information may be used to scam your friends by making them believe the scammer is you. Impersonating you to target your friends on social media sites is used repeatedly because it works.
Lastly the reason you might want to rethink your security settings is not a pleasant one, but something everyone should consider. Unfortunately there are hackers who read the obituaries and look for accounts that are for the recently deceased so that they can commit identity theft with the information you have provided on your Facebook account. If the unthinkable happens and you are not around, you might want to have designated someone to be your Legacy Contact. This could be a family member or a close friend who would be your administrator. Or, you can simply choose to have your account permanently deleted should you pass away–to do this go to the top right of Facebook and select “Settings” then “Security”, click Legacy Contact and follow the instructions.
I’m not trying to single out Facebook but it is the most popular social media site so has the most potential for abuse. The same precautions should be taken for your other social media including dating sites, alumni sites, ancestry-tracing sites, and all the rest. In addition, video and photo-sharing sites such as YouTube, Snapchat and Flickr can also provide information about you, your family and your friends.
Social Media is such an easy way of keeping in touch that I know you aren’t going to run and cancel all your accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and the rest, but you should consider being cautious because of the trouble and expense it will cost you if your identity is stolen. Consider also that there is a new identity fraud victim every 2 seconds.
Once again I would like to remind you not share login information and to use a different strong password for each account. Make use of any security settings offered by social media platforms and be selective when sharing information. Remember you do not have to put all of your genuine information out there, consider altering facts that are used for account verification questions such as the school you attended, the year you graduated, or your father’s middle name. Then make sure you use the revised information for your password security verification questions. You can always divulge to your family why you are replacing some of your private information.
Nothing will completely stop identity theft but the proper use of social media will help to protect your privacy and security. Take a few minutes and think about what you are sharing–and with what “friends”.