Discover what social networks know about you

In just half an hour, someone with a bit of skill can discover all kinds of information about anyone just by searching on Google: full name, date of birth, area where they live, what school they went to, who their friends are, political affiliation , mobile phone, email address, ID… And they are

social networks;

not only because of what is published on them, but also because of the information they collect (and then show) each time a profile is created.

Bearing in mind that only in Spain it is estimated that 85% of the population (28 million) habitually uses a social network, as shown in the latest IAB Social Network Study, the amount of data that users potentially have access to cybercriminals is enormous and, with them, the risk of being sold, identity theft and a long list of consequences, almost all negative.

And the most worrying thing is that, on many occasions, users do not even know what the exposed personal information is.

To know it in detail and take the appropriate privacy measures to restrict it,

Facebook, the one who knows the most

The social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg is the one that knows the most about its users.

And it is that the profiles include information of all kinds: place of residence, study center, place of work, sentimental situation, who their relatives are, telephone number, email address, religious beliefs... They even carry out a exhaustive record of the pages that have been visited on the Internet and where they have been.

The list is really long.

Checking exactly what it knows is very easy: all you have to do is access its privacy verification tool, which guides you through different sections in which you can review the information and who can see it (only me, friends, public...).

Ideally, set the settings as restrictive as possible and periodically remove all logs;

a reminder can be scheduled within the tool.

What about LinkedIn?

"This social network becomes the favorite network for cybercriminals to carry out

attacks ."

With this categorical information, the report

defines the level of exposure of users in the professional social network par excellence.

The peculiarity is that most of the data it collects is related to the job position, the name of the company and the number of workers it has.

To check them, it is necessary to request a report from the privacy settings of the profile that can take up to 72 hours, selecting what should be included (articles, contacts, messages, recommendations...).

That being said, there are three essential configuration aspects to ensure security.

One of these is data privacy, which sets out how LinkedIn uses the information and what it may or may not collect and share, or third-party services with access to the data.

The second, visibility: who can see the profile, contact, see the email address or telephone number, that it appears in search engines... And, finally, the advertising data.

This menu is where permission is given to the social network to collect profile information (contacts, location, company...), as well as the websites visited, advertisements outside of LinkedIn or interactions with companies.

The least 'aggressive'

Instagram and Twitter collect much less personal data: mentions, profile picture, geolocation... From Instagram, data verification is done by requesting a report that can take up to 48 hours;

the download link is active four days.

From the configuration, it is also easy to delete 'likes' and comments, review the changes in the account since it was created and review the photos and videos shared.

On Twitter, on the other hand, the information is downloaded in approximately 24 hours in a ZIP file with account information, history, apps and devices, activity, interests and Twitter Ads data.

All the changes that are considered necessary to limit this information are made from the same configuration menu in the privacy and security section.

Finally, TikTok, one of the most downloaded apps of 2022, does not store as much meta-information as the previous cases.

Likewise, it allows you to select which account is private, which appears in the search engines, who can see the

and even download the videos.

An interesting aspect is that it lets you see from which devices you have logged in, so it is easy to know if an account has been stolen and remove that permission immediately (afterward, the ideal is to change the password).

In any case, if you want to receive a report with the data to which the network has access, it takes the longest: up to 30 days to process the request.

The file will include all personal data the service has collected, privacy settings, uploaded videos, and a detailed log of all activity.

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