Protecting your privacy on Facebook

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Facebook is making it harder to hide by removing a feature that prevents your profile from appearing on searches. Here we look at how else you can maintain your privacy.

How to stop your boss seeing what you got up to at the weekend.

We all like to maintain a professional image at work, but when the weekend comes around it’s time to let your hair down.

It may not be until Monday morning that you realise those photos of you pulling your John Travolta moves on the dance floor, or collapsed over a toilet bowl in a cheesy nightclub, have made it onto Facebook.

But fear not, there is a way to make sure that your boss never witnesses your shame. Simply click on the photo you have been tagged in, and when the photo opens up, click the Options button on the toolbar along the bottom.

Then select Remove/Report tag and you are given the option of simply untagging yourself. This will remove the picture from your profile but it will still exist on Facebook. You can also request that the picture is removed from Facebook completely.

Click on the downward arrow in the top right corner of the screen and selet Settings from the drop down menu.

In the settings menu, under Timeline and Tagging, you can also specify who can see the posts you have been tagged in on your timeline, and the posts that other people have posted on your timeline.

For maximum security (or if you are friends with your boss on Facebook), select Only me.

Similarly, you can restrict what certain individuals can see. Click Blocking in the settings menu and then select Edit List beside the Restricted List option.

You can then type in the name of the person and only give them access to the posts and information you make public.

How to avoid unwanted friend requests

If you work in a job where you value your privacy, you may want to stop the people you work with adding you as a friends on Facebook.

If you are a teacher or a doctor for example, you may not want your students or your patients to be able to track you down.

Or maybe you just don’t want your colleagues to feel tempted to infringe on your personal space.

You can avoid unwanted friend requests by going to your profile and clicking on the downward arrow in the top right corner of the screen.

When the drop-down menu appears, click on Settings, and then when the page refreshes click on the Privacy option in the left hand menu. Under ‘Who can contact me’ you can specify who can send you friend requests.

You can also specify who can look you up using your email address or via a search engine. This means that anyone who plugs your name into Google will not get a link to your Facebook profile.

How to stop prospective employers finding out too much about you

We’ve all heard the stories about people applying for jobs and finding out when they are sitting in the interview room that their prospective employer knows far more about them than they cared to divulge.

To maintain an air of mystery, it is important to get your Facebook privacy settings right.

Go to the settings on your profile and change Who can see my stuff’ to just Friends or, if you’re really paranoid. Only me. Be warned however, this will only affect your future posts.

If you want to make older posts or things you have been tagged in invisible to prospective employers, you need to Review all yor posts and things you’re tagged in, and use the drop-down menus on the right to limit the audience for each individual post. You can also limit the audience for posts you have shared with friends of friends or in public.

How to stop people posting embarrassing things about you

Siblings posting that picture of you in the bath as a child, friends tagging you in updates that describe your latest mortifying gaff – Facebook broadcasts your antics like never before.

But sometimes it is good to employ damage limitation to keep your reputation in tact.

In the Settings menu, select Timeline and Tagging. Here Facebook gives you the option of reviewing posts that friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline.

You can also review tags people add to your own posts before the tags appear on Facebook.