LinkedIn is used to collect professional information, but also some more personal or private information. It is also more and more used to prepare social engineering attacks. So you need to be careful on what you publish on LinkedIn, and not let it wide open…
Pre-requisite security advices on LinkedIn
Remember to only accept in your contacts people that you met or know.
Use a a dedicated email address, only used for LinkedIn (you can forward it to your main email address).
Don’t put your phone number, date of birth, real address, etc…
Never criticise your company.
Settings to secure your privacy on LinkedIn
In this article you’ll see what you need to know to manage your privacy and security settings on LinkedIn.
Showing your profile photo
Choose to display your photo to your contacts only.
LinkedIn Privacy – Showing profile photos
Setup: Account preferences Site preference Showing profile photos
Showing your active status
Don’t indicate wether you are online or not.
LinkedIn Privacy – Manage active status
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your LinkedIn activity Manage active status
Deciding who can see your connections
A lot of people believe that all LinkedIn users can see their connections. This is not actually the case.
By default, only your first-degree connections can see your other first-degree connections. (First-degree connections are people you invited or people who invited you.)
Turn this setting off if you don’t want your connections to see each other.
LinkedIn Privacy – Connections
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your profile & network Connections
Deciding who can view profiles you have visited
Activate this option to make sure people do not see you have visited their profile.
But know that in return, you won’t be able to see who has visited your profile.
LinkedIn Privacy – Profile viewing options
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your profile & network Profile viewing options
Sharing profile updates with your network
This privacy setting has less to do with your personal security and more to do with how your contacts view you and your activity. Since you don’t necessarily want to alert your network of every minor change you make to your profile, it is recommended that you turn off profile edits (previously called activity broadcasts).
LinkedIn Privacy – Share profile updates with your network
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your LinkedIn activity Share profile updates with your network
Notifying connections when you’re in the news
LinkedIn’s Mentioned in the News feature automatically finds and shares with your network news items that mention you.
Mentioned in the News is a fantastic feature for people who have a positive presence online. However, you’ll want to turn this feature off if you or one of your clients is dealing with reputation management issues (for example, you’re working with a client who is experiencing a personal social media crisis or getting negative press).
LinkedIn Privacy – Notify connections when you’re in the news
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your LinkedIn activity Notify connections when you're in the news
Making your profile publicly searchable on Google
Decide wether or not to appear in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc… Ideally deactivate this feature.
LinkedIn Privacy – Edit your public profile 1
Select what others see on your profile even if they are not connected to LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Privacy – Edit your public profile 2
Setup: Visibility Visibility of your profile & network Edit your public profile
Authorising cookies to track you
For better privacy, and less tracking, deactivate all cookies.
LinkedIn Privacy – Manage cookie preferences
This will automatically deactivate cookies for:
- Personalised advertising
- Analytics and research
- Functional
Setup: Data Privacy How LinkedIn uses your data Manage Cookies Preferences
Selecting advertising preferences
Remember, if it is free, that means you are the product. Deactivated targeted ads is always a clever option.
LinkedIn Privacy – Advertising preferences
Authorising sending your data to third-parties
As another layer of protection, turn off all data sharing with third-party applications.
LinkedIn Privacy – Third-party data
Setup: Advertising data Third-party data
In Conclusion
The steps above can help you keep yourself safe as an individual, while remaining visible as a marketing professional. Although we highlighted the most important settings to review, make sure you check all of the LinkedIn privacy and security items for optimal protection.