Most social media services and online gaming accounts will provide some privacy settings. These may let you control who sees the things you share, who can send you messages and who can add you as a friend. If you’re not sure whether an app you’re using has privacy settings, try searching the name of the app and the term ‘privacy settings’ on a search engine.
Questions you may have
For some accounts the privacy settings are very simple, for example choosing between having a private or public profile. On other services there are many more options including settings around messages, comments, how your data is used and even facial recognition!
Privacy settings are important because they can help protect you and the content you share. For example, you may want to share a photo but only with your friends – using privacy settings lets you do this. Privacy settings can also help protect your online reputation.
On some apps privacy settings will be turned on as soon as you create an account, but on others your profile is automatically public, so it’s always best to check. Privacy settings can often be found by clicking on these symbols:
Or looking for the words ‘Privacy’ or ‘Security’.
If you’re not sure how to use privacy settings, speak to an adult and use a search engine to help find useful instructions.
It’s always safest to have a private account and to only add people you know as friends. However, there are some situations where having a public account is helpful too, for example if you participate in online activism and campaign for a cause or if you are using your social media accounts to reach out to a particular company about their work. For this reason, some people choose to create two accounts: a personal, private one and a public one.
Privacy settings and having a private account helps keep your content safe, but it’s important to remember that they are not perfect. There are other ways the things you share can be seen more widely, for example if somebody screenshots something you have said or done online and shares it with other people. There are also parts of your profile that are often always public, e.g. profile picture, username and bio.
Top Tips
- Use privacy settings wherever possible to help protect your online accounts and the content you share on them.
- Ask a friend to help you check your privacy settings when you first create an account by looking at your profile without adding you and seeing what is visible to the public.
- Check which parts of your profile aren’t protected by privacy settings like your profile picture and username, and think carefully about what you share here.
- Review your privacy settings regularly and explore all the options that are available on the services you use.
- Even if you have a private account, always think carefully about what you say and do online and how it might reflect on you or make other people feel.