With over 800 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. As a platform built around creating and maintaining professional connections, LinkedIn encourages users to share details about their career histories, skills, education, and more. While this transparency can be beneficial in many ways, it also means that users’ profiles contain sensitive information. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides robust privacy settings that allow users control over who can view their profiles.
Limiting visibility of your LinkedIn profile
By default, LinkedIn profiles are visible to all LinkedIn members. However, users can limit the visibility of their full profiles and select information within their profiles. Here are some of the key ways to control profile visibility on LinkedIn:
- Set your full profile to be visible only to your LinkedIn connections. You can do this by going to your profile’s visibility settings and selecting “Your Connections”. This will restrict your full profile only to people you are connected with.
- Customize visibility by section. Within the visibility settings, you can choose custom visibility settings for each section of your profile, like work experience, education, skills, etc. For example, you may want your skills visible to the public but your recommendations just to your connections.
- Select individual connections to exclude. Using the “Select who can see your activity updates” setting, you can exclude specific connections from seeing your full profile.
Using these controls, you can dial in exactly who can view the entirety of your LinkedIn profile.
Controlling access to your contact information
In addition to profile visibility, LinkedIn also allows you to control access to your contact information like your email address, phone number, and mailing address. Here are some key settings to manage access to your contact info:
- Select visibility for your email, phone, and location info. You can set each type of contact info to be visible to Everyone, Your Connections, or Only You.
- Control who can download your email address. Even if your email is visible on your profile, you can restrict which LinkedIn members are able to extract/download it.
- Hide your LinkedIn profile when someone searches your name on Google. Enabling this setting prevents your profile from appearing in Google search results.
Leveraging these settings appropriately lets you reveal the right amount of contact information to the right audiences. For many users, it’s best to limit access to contact info to their direct connections only.
Managing content visibility
In addition to your profile, LinkedIn also allows you to control the visibility of other content you post and interact with on the platform:
- Limit visibility of LinkedIn posts. When creating a post, you can select whether it’s visible to the public or just your connections.
- Choose visibility for job applications and searches. You can control whether your connections receive notifications when you apply for jobs or follow companies.
- Make your LinkedIn activity private. The “Share your profile edits, endorsements and activity” setting lets you hide your LinkedIn activity from your connections’ feeds.
Proactively managing the visibility for your posts, job applications, profile edits, and other activity prevents oversharing information with your network.
Reviewing privacy violations
While privacy settings restrict access to your profile, sometimes users will find ways to view your profile even if they don’t have permission. LinkedIn has tools to identify these privacy violations:
- View profile stalkers. The “Who’s viewed your profile” section shows you users who have viewed your profile within the last 90 days, including those without permission.
- Check for anonymous profile views. If you see “Anonymous” in your list of profile viewers, it indicates someone has viewed your profile without being signed into LinkedIn.
Regularly monitoring these tools helps you identity any privacy violations and determine if further restricting profile access is needed.
Limiting data collection by LinkedIn
In addition to controlling what other users can see, you can also limit data collection by LinkedIn itself. Some key settings to manage data collection include:
- Opting out of targeted advertising. You can disable tailored ads based on your LinkedIn data and activity.
- Disabling profile metrics. This turns off LinkedIn tracking profile view counts and who’s viewing your profile.
- Restricting cookie tracking. LinkedIn’s cookie policy lets you limit cookie-based tracking and targeting.
While LinkedIn uses data to improve their products and services, restricting collection as much as possible gives you greater privacy.
Securing your LinkedIn account
In addition to privacy settings, you also need to secure your LinkedIn account to prevent unauthorized access:
- Use a strong password. Your LinkedIn password should be long, complex, and unique from other accounts.
- Enable two-factor authentication. Adding an extra verification step like an SMS code prevents account takeovers.
- Change passwords periodically. Regular password changes reduce the risk from password leaks.
- Review login alerts. LinkedIn sends notifications anytime your account has an unusual login.
Practicing good password hygiene reduces the chance of privacy and security issues down the line. Be sure to establish recovery options as well in case you ever lose account access.
Understanding LinkedIn data and privacy policies
In addition to managing settings, it’s also important to understand LinkedIn’s own policies regarding data and privacy:
- Read LinkedIn’s privacy policy. This outlines what data they collect, how they use it, and the controls they provide users.
- Stay updated on policy changes. Keep an eye out for notifications from LinkedIn regarding privacy policy updates.
- Document your own settings. Keep a record of your privacy and data settings for reference.
- Understand public profile info. Some profile data like name and photo remains public regardless of settings.
Having clarity on LinkedIn’s policies allows you to make informed decisions when adjusting your privacy settings.
Appropriate settings for different user segments
The ideal LinkedIn privacy settings can vary depending on your priorities as a user:
- Job seekers – More open settings to be discoverable, but limit personal contact info
- Employees – Conservative settings to maintain professionalism
- Business owners – Open enough for networking but avoid oversharing
- Students – Balance academic details and extracurriculars with privacy
Understanding typical norms and practices of those in your segment helps guide appropriate privacy settings.
Common LinkedIn privacy issues
Some common privacy-related issues that can occur on LinkedIn include:
- Overly permissive default settings for new users
- Contacts scraping email addresses and other info from profiles
- Spam messages and inappropriate contact requests
- Job applications visible to wider audiences
- Other users sharing or commenting inappropriately on posts
Being aware of these risks allows you to proactively manage settings to avoid privacy problems.
Key takeaways
Here are some key tips for managing LinkedIn privacy:
- Restrict your full profile and contact info to direct connections only
- Limit visibility of job searches, posts, and other activity
- Disable LinkedIn tracking and advertising as much as possible
- Use strong account security including complex passwords
- Review LinkedIn’s privacy policy and stay updated on changes
- Monitor profile stalkers and anonymous viewers
- Adjust settings appropriately for your user segment like job seeker, employee, etc.
With LinkedIn being mission-critical for many professional connections and career opportunities, taking the time to manage your privacy and security settings is a worthwhile investment. The platform provides robust controls to limit exposure – you just need to make sure you use them.