Guarding privacy

The dashboard on your Google Account will show you all the data Google holds about you. Your data includes information collected as you use the services, like searches, and the things you create or provide, like email.

Privacy controls

You can use your Google Account to manage the types of data that are collected, and update what you share with friends or make public.

You can also control what data is saved to your account, and even set data to automatically delete.

Ads and data

Google Ad Settings enable you to adjust the types of ads that you would like to see. Google uses data to make ads more relevant and useful to you, however, you can also choose to turn this off entirely. You can find out more information here.

Privacy Check-up

Google’s Privacy Check-up offers a convenient way to review key settings and the data that Google uses to personalise your experience.

It is worth taking the time to customise your privacy settings if you share updates, photos and videos on Facebook.

Check your Facebook privacy settings by clicking on “Settings”, or take the Privacy Checkup.

Some things, like your name and profile photo, are always public on Facebook. However, you can adjust the privacy settings for most of the other information that is visible through your profile, timeline, news feed and even your friends’ posts and comments.

Remember that you can choose a different audience each time you post.  You can even create custom lists for certain content.

Anything you share publicly can be seen by anyone on or off Facebook (for example, in a Google search result).

Made a mistake? It’s easy to change the audience even if your post is already live. You can also delete or hide something you’ve already posted.

You can check your LinkedIn privacy settings by clicking the “Me” icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage. Select “Settings & Privacy” and then “Privacy”.

There are various sub-sections that allow you to choose how and what you share about yourself through your profile, the visibility of your profile activity, and even how LinkedIn uses your data.

Many people use this platform for job-seeking, so it’s useful to know that you can control how visible to make your job search.

You can also customise your privacy settings to choose who can follow you, and to block or unfollow certain people.

You might like to read this useful overview of the key settings you can manage through LinkedIn’s Settings & Privacy page.

By default, all Instagram accounts are public. This means that anyone can view, like or comment on your profile and posts.

If you have a personal Instagram account, you can make it private, so that only followers you approve can see your content.

If you have a business account, you will need to switch it to a personal account before you can make it private.

Even with a public account, you can block specific people, delete comments  and control your visibility.

Instagram’s Privacy and Safety Center has advice about issues such as sharing photos safely, reporting abuse and spam and keeping your children safe on Instagram.

Most of the profile information you provide on Twitter is always public. This includes your biography, location, website and picture. Some profile information fields have visibility settings, which allow you to choose who on Twitter can see this particular information.

It is worth remembering that if you provide profile information and there isn’t a visibility setting to control who can see it, that information is public.

Twitter’s Help Center has links to some useful articles about privacy:

How to control your Twitter experience

How to protect and unprotect your Tweets

How to keep your account secure

There is also advice about Tweeting with your location, which allows Twitter to collect, store and use your precise location information, such as GPS information, and controlling personalised ads.