Four tips on protecting your personal information on Facebook

TIP ONE - How to prevent strangers from seeing your Friend list when they search Facebook or when they click on your profile.

1. Go to MY PROFILE
2. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
3. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
4. Then click on SEARCH (2nd in list)
5. You should see a check-box list. UNCHECK the MY FRIEND LIST box (and any others, you might want to do)
6. Click on SAVE CHANGES

Beware that, if you reply to an email in Facebook, that your correspondent will be able to see your Friends for one month.

TIP TWO - How to change your general privacy settings so that only your friends (approved only by you) can see your profile [personal information about you, personal pictures etc.].

1. Go to MY PROFILE
2. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
3. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
4. Click on PROFILE (1st in list)
5. I suggest you change all the drop-down box options to “Only Friends”
6. Click SAVE CHANGES.

Your new settings are operational with immediate effect – you don’t have to sign off and then sign on again.

TIP THREE - How to set up a Limited Profile group of Friends
[A limited profile allows you to distinguish between acquaintances whom you might only like to see certain parts of that profile and real friends whom you might want to see all that you post on your site]

1. Go to FRIENDS
2. Click on the Make a New List button
3. Choose a name, say “Acquaintances”
4. Select your friends whom you want to be part of the “Acquaintances” group
5. Save the List
6. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
7. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
8. Click on PROFILE
9. Click on the drop down menu next to Basic Information
10. Select CUSTOMISE
11. Select the ONLY FRIENDS radio button and type in “Acquaintances” in the EXCEPT box
12. Click Okay
13. Repeat steps 10 to 12 for each of the profile drop down menus.
14. You may like to consider setting up a number of these groups, say for "Family" or "Colleagues" and customise the settings to each of these
15. You will need to allocate your Facebook Friends to these groups
    

TIP FOUR- How to limited who sees your photo albums
[This assumes that you have set up a number of photo albums]

1. Go to the PHOTOS part of your PROFILE
2. Click on ALBUMS
3. Click the ALBUM PRIVACY button
4. Using the drop down menus select who you will allow to see each album

For example, if you want one album just to be seen by your family

1. First set up a group for your "Family" [see Tip 3 above]
2. On the drop down menu for the photograph album, select CUSTOMISE
3. Select the SOME FRIENDS radio button
4. Type in "Family" in the box that appears
   
5. Click OKAY
   

[Thanks to Steph Kirton with her help on Tips One and Two]