Protecting your personal information when you are social networking is important to your safety. Social networking is fun and a great way to get new ideas from your friends. But there is some personal information that you should protect when you are social networking. You can protect your personal information when you are social networking by following these guidelines.
Limit the personal information you put on the social networking sites.
Check the privacy policy of the social networking.
Make your privacy settings strong.
Be careful of strangers.
To begin protecting personal information when social networking you will need to limit the personal information you put on the social networking sites. This is a big one and should not be over looked. The information you put on social networks will be available for everyone to see. You may have your setting so that only friends can view what you put on, but there are hackers that will get into whatever password you have and see what you put on social networking.
The things you want to make sure you do not put on social networking are physical addresses, phone numbers, routines, schedules, full names, social security numbers and any bank information. This personal information should always be kept protected especially when you are social networking. It is also a good idea to not let your networking username reveal too much information about who you are.
Keep in mind that what you post will stay there forever. The Internet is a public place and many people can access what you put on social networking sites. If you don’t want it there forever, then don’t post it through social networking. Your personal information is just that, personal and should be protected. Your personal information is best protected when it is never posted.
The next thing to do when you are protecting your personal information on social networks is to check the privacy policy of the social networks. Some privacy policies will allow your email and information to be shared with other companies. This will not protect your personal information and it will lead to more spam. Sometimes the privacy policies will not share your personal information, but the friends you refer. Read the privacy policy and see if you really do agree.
The third guideline for protecting your personal information when you are social networking is to make your privacy settings strong. This can be done with each social network and should be looked into for each user. The privacy setting will limit the people that can view what you post. Some are very strong and will deter hackers or predators. You will want to take all the precaution you can so that you can protect you personal information.
If you are protecting personal information when social networking you will need to be very careful of strangers. Many people get involved in social networking because they want to meet new people and get ideas from others around the world. What users need to be careful of is that not everyone is portraying the real them.
Predators will look at your profile or preferences and set their preferences to match yours. You should never give any personal information to strangers when social networking. You should also be careful when opening their emails asking to be your friend. It could be a virus trap or a way for them to get into your computer system and steel your personal information.
Protecting personal information when social networking is very important to users. There are ways for protecting personal information to help protect you and your family and friends. You will want to put only safe information on the social networking sites and then you will want to read the privacy policy and see how much sharing is going on. Then you will want to make your privacy setting strong to make your posting available to only family and friends. And last but not least you will want to protect your personal information when social networking by watching out for strangers.
