Facebook Privacy & Security Guide 2026
Facebook remains a major source of personal data exposure through public posts, friend lists, and search visibility. Even users who haven't logged in for years often have public surfaces that adversaries scrape into people-search aggregators.
Set Who can see your friends list? to Only me before anything else. It is the most-scraped field on the profile, because a friends list is how a stranger works out who your family are.Then turn on Profile locking, and switch search-engine indexing off under How people find and contact you so the profile stops appearing in Google results at all.
Key steps to lock down Facebook in 2026
- Open the Facebook app or website. Click your profile picture, then Settings & Privacy → Settings.
- Go to Audience and visibility and set Who can see your future posts? to Friends or Only me.
- Set Who can see your friends list? to Only me — this is one of the most-scraped fields by people-search sites.
- Enable Profile locking. This hides your profile from non-friends entirely on mobile devices.
- Run the Privacy Checkup tool and review every section.
- Disable Allow others to share your posts to their stories and limit Face recognition.
- Under How people find and contact you, set search-engine indexing to off so your profile no longer appears in Google results.
- Enable two-factor authentication using an authenticator app (not SMS) under Security and login.
Quick checklist
- Profile visibility: Private or friends-only
- Search engine indexing: Off
- Location sharing: Off
- Two-factor authentication: Enabled (authenticator app, not SMS)
- Data partner sharing / personalized ads: Off
- Linked apps + sessions: Audited and revoked where unfamiliar
Why these settings still aren't enough
Even with every Facebook setting locked down, your data still leaks through three channels these settings can't reach: historical exposures already in breach corpora, third-party scrapers that mirrored your old public data, and people-search aggregators that re-list your details every time you remove them. That's where continuous external monitoring becomes essential.
How Warden extends your Facebook privacy
Even with perfect settings, old posts, tagged photos, and historical group activity can still leak through breach corpora and people-search aggregators. Warden by GalaxyWarden continuously monitors 13.1B+ breach records and 100+ platforms, performs AI-powered identity-chain mapping to surface every Facebook-linked exposure across your household, and dispatches specialists to handle removal — with explicit family coverage including children's gaming accounts that often serve as the lateral pivot point into your real identity.
Run a free Warden scan to see exactly what is exposed about you across every platform — not just Facebook.
