Is your Facebook profile sharing more than you realise? How to check your privacy settings
Facebook is wonderful for staying connected with family and friends, seeing photos of grandchildren, sharing memories, keeping up with people you care about. For millions of Baby Boomers, it’s become an important part of daily life.
But Facebook can also be surprisingly public if you haven’t adjusted the default settings. And many people who joined years ago are sharing far more than they’d be comfortable with if they stopped to think about it.
The good news is that Facebook gives you a great deal of control over who sees what. The settings are there — they just need a little attention.
What strangers might be seeing right now
By default, or through settings that have shifted over time, your Facebook profile may be visible to people you’ve never met.
Your profile photo and cover photo are typically public regardless of your other settings. Your friend list may be visible, revealing the names and connections of people close to you. Posts you made years ago, when privacy settings were different, might still be set to public. Your workplace, hometown, and relationship status, if filled in, may be visible to anyone.
None of this is Facebook’s fault, but the platform’s defaults favour sharing, and many users set things up years ago without realising they were making themselves visible to the world.
Why this matters
You might think: I’m not a celebrity, why would anyone care about my Facebook profile?
Scammers and criminals are interested precisely because you’re not a celebrity. They’re looking for ordinary people whose details they can use to build trust, guess passwords, or target family members.
If your Facebook profile shows your date of birth, your children’s names, your grandchildren’s school activities, the suburb you live in, and the fact that you’re away on holiday this week — that’s a significant amount of information that can be misused.
Knowing your mother’s maiden name and your childhood street (common security questions) is easy if someone can scroll through your posts and photos. Knowing your home is empty while you post holiday photos in real time is useful information for the wrong kind of person.
The key privacy settings to check
You don’t need to delete your Facebook account or stop using it. You just need to spend about fifteen minutes reviewing a few key settings.
Who can see your posts? Go to Settings, then Privacy. Under “Your activity”, find “Who can see your future posts” and set it to Friends. Then use the “Limit Past Post Visibility” tool to change all your old public posts to Friends at once.
Who can see your friend list? In Privacy settings, find “Who can see your friends list” and set it to Friends or Only Me.
Who can look you up? Under “How people find and contact you”, consider changing “Who can look you up using the email address you provided” to Friends of Friends or Friends.
Profile information. Review what’s in your About section — workplace, home town, relationship status, date of birth. For anything you don’t need people to see, either remove it or change the audience to Only Me.
Tagged photos. Check who can see photos you’ve been tagged in. It’s usually wise to set this to Friends.
A note about profile and cover photos
Your profile photo and cover photo are always public on Facebook, even to people who aren’t your friends. This is a Facebook policy you can’t change. For this reason, it’s worth choosing a profile photo that you’re comfortable with anyone in the world seeing.
Reviewing your Facebook activity
Facebook has a tool called “Activity Log” that shows you every post, photo, comment, and reaction you’ve ever made on the platform. It’s worth scrolling through occasionally to see what’s there and adjusting the audience on anything you’d prefer to keep more private.
You might find old posts from years ago that are set to public — posts you wouldn’t necessarily share so widely today.
The bigger picture
Adjusting your Facebook privacy settings is about more than just Facebook. The information on your profile contributes to your overall digital footprint, the trail of personal information that exists about you online.
Keeping that footprint smaller and more controlled is one of the most practical things you can do for your online safety.
Cyber Safe & Confident includes a dedicated Facebook safety section with step-by-step screenshots showing exactly which settings to change and how to find them on your device — whether you’re on a phone, tablet, or computer.
Is your Facebook profile sharing more than you realise? How to check your privacy settings
Facebook is wonderful for staying connected with family and friends, seeing photos of grandchildren, sharing memories, keeping up with people you care about. For millions of Baby Boomers, it’s become an important part of daily life.
But Facebook can also be surprisingly public if you haven’t adjusted the default settings. And many people who joined years ago are sharing far more than they’d be comfortable with if they stopped to think about it.
The good news is that Facebook gives you a great deal of control over who sees what. The settings are there — they just need a little attention.
What strangers might be seeing right now
By default, or through settings that have shifted over time, your Facebook profile may be visible to people you’ve never met.
Your profile photo and cover photo are typically public regardless of your other settings. Your friend list may be visible, revealing the names and connections of people close to you. Posts you made years ago, when privacy settings were different, might still be set to public. Your workplace, hometown, and relationship status, if filled in, may be visible to anyone.
None of this is Facebook’s fault, but the platform’s defaults favour sharing, and many users set things up years ago without realising they were making themselves visible to the world.
Why this matters
You might think: I’m not a celebrity, why would anyone care about my Facebook profile?
Scammers and criminals are interested precisely because you’re not a celebrity. They’re looking for ordinary people whose details they can use to build trust, guess passwords, or target family members.
If your Facebook profile shows your date of birth, your children’s names, your grandchildren’s school activities, the suburb you live in, and the fact that you’re away on holiday this week — that’s a significant amount of information that can be misused.
Knowing your mother’s maiden name and your childhood street (common security questions) is easy if someone can scroll through your posts and photos. Knowing your home is empty while you post holiday photos in real time is useful information for the wrong kind of person.
The key privacy settings to check
You don’t need to delete your Facebook account or stop using it. You just need to spend about fifteen minutes reviewing a few key settings.
Who can see your posts? Go to Settings, then Privacy. Under “Your activity”, find “Who can see your future posts” and set it to Friends. Then use the “Limit Past Post Visibility” tool to change all your old public posts to Friends at once.
Who can see your friend list? In Privacy settings, find “Who can see your friends list” and set it to Friends or Only Me.
Who can look you up? Under “How people find and contact you”, consider changing “Who can look you up using the email address you provided” to Friends of Friends or Friends.
Profile information. Review what’s in your About section — workplace, home town, relationship status, date of birth. For anything you don’t need people to see, either remove it or change the audience to Only Me.
Tagged photos. Check who can see photos you’ve been tagged in. It’s usually wise to set this to Friends.
A note about profile and cover photos
Your profile photo and cover photo are always public on Facebook, even to people who aren’t your friends. This is a Facebook policy you can’t change. For this reason, it’s worth choosing a profile photo that you’re comfortable with anyone in the world seeing.
Reviewing your Facebook activity
Facebook has a tool called “Activity Log” that shows you every post, photo, comment, and reaction you’ve ever made on the platform. It’s worth scrolling through occasionally to see what’s there and adjusting the audience on anything you’d prefer to keep more private.
You might find old posts from years ago that are set to public — posts you wouldn’t necessarily share so widely today.
The bigger picture
Adjusting your Facebook privacy settings is about more than just Facebook. The information on your profile contributes to your overall digital footprint, the trail of personal information that exists about you online.
Keeping that footprint smaller and more controlled is one of the most practical things you can do for your online safety.
Cyber Safe & Confident includes a dedicated Facebook safety section with step-by-step screenshots showing exactly which settings to change and how to find them on your device — whether you’re on a phone, tablet, or computer.