ISSUE 380|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 9999
Hidepersonaldetails
Go to your profile and click
About. Here,you cansee the
personal information on your
account, and youcan choose
who cansee what. Foreach bit
of information, such as your
phone number or dateofbirth,
youcan choose who cansee
the information: Public, Friends,
Only Me or Custom, which gives
youthe same restriction
options as forthe Posts setting.
We recommend using
Friends or Only Me forevery
bit of information, erring
towardsOnly Me formore
sensitiveinformation, such as
your phone number and year
of birth.
Stoppingthird-party
appaccess
We recommend stopping
third-party apps and websites
from accessing your data. In particular,if
youtry to sign up to use anew website,
don’t use the sign up with Facebook option,
and alwayscreateanew user accountand
password using your email address.
It’sworth checking out what other sites
knowabout you. Go to Settings in Facebook,
and select Apps and websites to viewthe
ones that haveaccess to your account.
Youcan click an App and select Edit to see
what information it cansee, such as your
friends list; remove the blue tick to prevent
abit of information being shared. Youcan
also restrict who the app canpost to;most
areset to Friends, but be wary of anything
that has Public access. Youcan remove an
app’s permissions entirely by selecting it
and clicking the cross.
Finally,you canban all apps (currentand
future) from accessing your Facebook
account. Click Edit under Apps, websites and
games, and click Turn Off.Doing this will
preventyou logging into other websites
using Facebook, it will disable the share
button on websites, and it canstopsome
games working. All in all, we think these are
small prices to pay forincreased security.
Disablelocationtracking
Facebook will also try to track your location
and storewhereyou havebeen, but who
wantsittoknowthat? To turn offthis
setting, go to your phone and open the
Facebook app. Select Settings, Location.
TapLocation services and makesurethat
this setting is turned offinyour phone’s
controlpanel: this will stop Facebook being
able to see whereyou are. Next, turn off
location history to stop Facebook from
recording whereyou’vebeen.
Twitter is amuch easier social
network to use, as it doesn’t try to
collect heaps of dataand isn’t built foryou
to entertons of privateinformation into.
However,thereare some settings that you
mightwanttocheck.
Logintoyour Twitter account, tapyour
profile image at the topofthe page, select
Settings and privacy, and then Privacyand
safety. Thereare afew options herethat
areworth looking at.
First, Protect your tweets allows youto
lock down your accountsothat only people
that followyou cansee what you’resaying:
youhavetoaccept newfollowers to allow
them to see your tweets.Tweetwith alocation mightbeworth
disabling, as it allows Twitter to see where
youare and tells other people whereyou
are. So if yousend atweet while on holiday,
people cansee that your house is empty as
you’reclearly away.You canalso use the
Delete location information button to
remove all locations from existing tweets.
Under Photo tagging, youcan prevent
people from tagging youinimages,
restricting it so that only friends cando
this or so that nobody can.
Finally,click your profile image, then click
your profile name, and click Edit profile.
Here youcan edit the information that
appears foryour account, removing
anything sensitivethat youdon’t want to
share, such as your dateofbirth.Instagram, the photo-sharing
network, automatically protects
some privatedata, such as your email
address and phone number.It’salso better
at location sharing: when youadd anew
photo,you havetochoose to add alocation
rather than this being the default option.
Thereare afew settings that youmight
want to check, however.Log into your
accountvia the website, then click the
outline of aperson and select Edit Profile.
Under Authorized Applications, youcan
viewand remove anythird-party apps
that haveaccess to your account.
Select Privacyand Security,and youcan
choose PrivateAccount, which prevents your
posts from being seen by anyone that’snot
following you. Youcan also stop people from
seeing when youwerelast activeand stop
people from sharing your stories.LEFT:Yo ucan restrict what information Tw itter
shares about youquite easilyABOVE:Instagramshares less personal information by default, but thereare still some settings to check