Facebook Privacy Tips: How to Limit Who Can Access Your Address, Phone Numbers and other Personal Information

Ever since the conception of social networking over the Internet, computer users have developed an additional fear that their personal information is put at risk of being compromised. With good reason computer users should be concerned about their personal information, but did you know there is something you can do about your address and phone numbers being displayed on Facebook?

You are probably already aware that Facebook is the largest social network on the Internet, harboring well-over 500 million computer user's profiles. Over the past couple years, Facebook has attempted to provide a safer environment allowing their users to access and modify certain 'privacy settings'. These settings could literally mean if you will become the next victim of identity theft.

Think about this for a minute. If your Facebook profile is open for everyone to view, what could some stranger conclude about you? Or even worse, what damage could a hacker cause if they were able to access your full name, address, phone number, school you attend, work address and other personal information? Even though a lot of this information can be found by searching specific records and sites online, why should you relinquish it on Facebook making it easy for a hacker to gather this data and later use it against you?

Kids are usually a big target on Facebook for cybercrooks because most of them fail to protect personal information. As a parent, you can easily limit access to the personal information that may be found on a kid's Facebook profile. Did you know that you can keep your Facebook profile information but prevent certain people from accessing it?

How to Keep the Information on your Facebook Profile but Control Who Can See It

1. Click the 'Privacy Settings' option in the upper right corner of your Facebook page 'Account' drop-down menu.
2. Click on 'Customized Settings' at the bottom of the page.
3. Locate an item under 'Things I share' of which you wish to limit access for that specific item on your Facebook profile. By Default, Facebook preselects 'Friends Only' for most of these items.
4. Within each item you may select 'Customize' within each item if you wish to select specific people/friends to make specific data visible to.

Please remember, it is never required that you supply contact information on Facebook other than a primary email address for accessing your Facebook profile. If you are ever unsure about Facebook protecting your personal information, it can easily be deleted from your Facebook profile by selecting 'Edit Profile' from your Facebook wall. Each item can be X-out or selected to not display at all.

How do you have your Facebook profile setup? Do you limit access to personal data to just friends or can anyone on Facebook view it?