The Privacy Issues of Facebook

There are over 500 million people that have a Facebook account and over half of them will sign into their accounts each day. With so many people on facebook, it is common to see problems with identity theft and other concerns. Facebook has also become an avenue for a lot of spam and problems with identity theft as well.

Facebook is the most popular social media site where millions of people gather to chat with their friends, catch up with old classmates, and play games. Facebook has a lot of great networking opportunities but there are some concerns with your privacy when it comes to using facebook. With so many different ways for companies to gain access to your private information, it is common to see a lot of false emails and other things that come up to try and get people to give you access to your bank account and to also get your home address and so forth.

Here are some of the biggest concerns you need to be aware of with Facebook privacy issues:

• Your information may be shared with third-parties without your knowledge or consent. All of those quizzes and other things that come up that you like to participate in can be filled with concerns as the quiz owner now has access to your Facebook account and all of the private information that is on your account. It is very important to watch out for these quizzes and the things that they are asking for because this is often how they get access to your home address and can steal your identity.
• Some of the ads that are on Facebook often contain malware. This can be very harmful to your computer and it can steal your personal information if you aren’t careful. A good virus program can aid in protecting your personal information but you still need to be very careful about the ads that are on facebook.
• There are a lot of fake profiles on Facebook. People that send you friend request aren’t always who they claim they are. If it’s a really good looking guy or girl and you have no idea who they are, its best to ignore their invite as it is likely a scammer. Scammers create fake accounts so that they can get access to your personal information, allowing them to set up bank accounts and other things in your name along with other concerns like stalking you by finding out your address and so forth.
• You need to be careful who you add as your friends, even if you do know them. Sometimes real friends do not realize that they are making their friends vulnerable. They might end up adding a number of people that they don’t even know and now these people can get access to your facebook account through your friends account.

You need to make sure your privacy settings are set to the highest level possible. This will be able to prevent people from gaining access to your account information without your knowledge. These settings will make it so only your friends can see your pictures and account information. You really don’t have privacy when you are dealing with the internet as all the information that is posted is actually now the property of Facebook.

Even with the higher privacy settings you are still vulnerable so it is a good idea to take the time to remove your account information that is very personal like your address, phone number, etc. Limit the amount of information you post to make it much harder for anyone to really understand where you live and so forth.