Re-post: Update your LinkedIn Privacy Settings -- make sure they are working for YOU and not LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a lot of settings to help control privacy, visibility, and how your data is used. Don’t just rely on the default settings though — use this primer to maximize your privacy

Make sure that your LinkedIn privacy settings are working FOR YOU!

Photo by Greg Bulla on Unsplash

Here’s a primer on the most critical settings to be aware of, along with my recommendations.

First and foremost, make sure you use a strong, unique password to log in to your LinkedIn account and multi-factor authentication! Remember, LinkedIn is extremely popular, which means bad actors use it for scams, targeting research, and other nefarious activities that could harm you!

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Visibility

How to get there: Click this link or go to LinkedIn on the web —> on the top menu bar, click on the down arrow under your profile photo —> select “Settings & Privacy” —> on the left menu bar, click on “Visibility.”

https://www.linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/categories/profile-visibility

My recommendation is to have your visibility settings be as restrictive as possible given what you are trying to accomplish on LinkedIn.

I recommend that you review what and how you are sharing and make sure they are as restrictive as possible for your goals. I highlight some settings to pay particular attention to below.

• Profile viewing options - you can restrict what people can see about you who are not connected to you.

• Edit your public profile - this is a great tool to see what your public profile looks like and choose the visibility of the different components.

  • This is where you set if your profile is public (if public, it can show up in search engines)

• Who can see or download your email address - For most people, I recommend you restrict this to “only visible to me.” If you are doing anything else, make sure the email address you are using is not your “primary one.” Remember—it’s critical to protect your email address!

  Make it harder for hackers to harm you by protecting your email address -- set up a secondary account and use that for account sign-ups