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How secure is Facebook?

Anna Pickard

Disaster struck Oxford University’s undergraduates this week when students were fined for end-of-term hijinks. Caught on camera performing the ancient final exam ritual of “trashing,” they face disciplinary hearings and fines for their bad behaviour. But the students themselves provided the evidence — proctors perused the Facebook site and collected pictures of wrongdoing.

So how do you stop your pictures being seen by everybody? Many new users are unaware that Facebook provides a number of privacy settings: in fact, you can be very specific about who can see your information. Using the button marked “privacy,” you can make sure that some people can see your phone number, while others are restricted to reading your sandwich preferences.

While you can control your own pictures — or request that other people’s pictures “tagged” with your name will not be attached to your own profile — you cannot stop anyone else from having their images of you on public display. —

Guardian News Service 2007

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