Don’t over-share: limiting personal info on your public Linkedin profile

LinkedIn is your professional showcase—it’s where you highlight your achievements, network with colleagues, and attract potential employers. The goal is visibility, but visibility comes with security risks. If your profile is too open, you could be giving away sensitive personal data that scammers, identity thieves, or stalkers can exploit.

While you want recruiters to find your experience, you definitely don’t want strangers finding your home address or private phone number. It’s time to actively edit your public LinkedIn profile to hide unnecessary personal data, like your ZIP code or contact information, ensuring your professional presence doesn’t compromise your personal safety.

The Risk of Public Exposure

LinkedIn lets you control what the public—meaning people you aren’t connected with and anyone who searches your name on Google—can see. The information you leave public can be easily harvested by cybercriminals:

• The Address Link: Even revealing your ZIP code allows a determined attacker to narrow down where you live, especially when combined with your past work history (which is publicly available).
• The Phishing Ploy: If your personal email or phone number is publicly listed, you become a prime target for spear-phishing attacks—highly customized emails designed to trick you because they appear so specific and legitimate.
• Stalking and Harassment: For professionals who deal with public-facing roles, revealing too much personal location data creates a real-world safety concern.

Remember, your resume contains enough information for a job interview; your public LinkedIn profile should not contain enough information for someone to steal your identity.

Your Active Solution: Edit Your Public View

Take control of your profile’s public visibility. LinkedIn makes it easy to decide exactly what information is visible to people outside your network.

Here is how you actively limit that personal information on your public profile:

1. Select Your Picture: Go to LinkedIn and click on your profile picture in the top right corner.
2. Go to Settings: Select View Profile from the menu.
3. Find the Public Settings: On your profile page, click Edit Public Profile and URL (it’s usually on the right-hand side).
4. Review and Edit Content: This page controls what non-members and search engines see. Review every section and hide unnecessary personal data.
   1. Hide Contact Info: Make sure your private phone number and personal email address are set to visible only to your connections (or hidden entirely).
   1. Limit Location Details: Set your location to the broadest area possible (e.g., “New York Metropolitan Area,” not your specific ZIP code or neighborhood).

Make any edits necessary and save. Regularly review this public profile view to ensure you are only sharing what is essential for your career and nothing more. Your professional networking shouldn’t come at the expense of your personal security.