Facebook Trusted Contacts are going away.
Prepare now.
Hi everyone, Leo Notenboom here.
For AskLeo.com. A feature that I actually have recommended in the past to
help you recover your Facebook account
in the case of loss
we've learned recently is going away. And that's
something that is a wonderful opportunity for
you and I to make sure we
review our account recovery options should something
ever happen to our Facebook accounts.
Trusted Contacts is a feature that allowed.
You to designate a number of contacts,
literally several friends associated with your account on Facebook,
that should you ever need to, be
able to recover your account
and the alternative recovery mechanisms weren't working.
Facebook would reach out to them,
or you could do something with them to confirm that.
Yes, this guy over here who's asking for his account back, it really is
the guy that should get the account back.
Facebook is removing that feature.
In fact, the wording is very specific.
Trusted Contacts is going away soon.
This means your chosen friends will no
longer be able to help you get back on Facebook.
If you lose access to your account, make sure your email address and phone.
Number are up to date in your account settings.
You can also learn more about tips on how
to keep your account secure and that's on top of the page.
Showing you how to set up Trusted Contacts.
The bottom line is. Don't set up Trusted Contacts.
There is simply no point.
Clearly the feature is going away.
What should you do instead?
Well, Facebook kind of alluded to that. Number one.
Go to your settings in general account.
Settings and edit your contact info.
To expose a list of all the.
Email addresses associated with your account.
Make sure they're all correct.
Make sure they're there.
But for the ones that are there.
Make sure they're correct.
Make sure these are accounts that you.
Can access should you ever need to.
This is like the first level of account recovery.
If you can't sign in, a message.
Will get sent to one or more.
Of these email addresses in order for you to recover your account.
You may not be told which email address is going to be used.
You may be shown only a partial.
Part of the email address.
You will need to confirm not only.
That you can receive email,
but that you know what the email address is to begin with.
So definitely make sure you review these settings and make sure that you know.
And continue to have access to those email addresses.
Review the phone numbers associated with your account as well.
There may be phone numbers listed with your contact information.
Same story.
Make sure those are phone numbers you have.
Phone numbers you trust.
Phone numbers that you can access.
Should you ever need to regain access.
To your account, Facebook will potentially send a text message to one of those.
Numbers in order to confirm that you are who you say you are as.
You try to recover your account.
Now the other thing that a lot of people don't do but I recommend.
Strongly as always that you do this.
Is you add two factor authentication.
This sounds like it might be making it harder to get back into your.
Account, but in fact it's just the reverse.
It does two things.
One, it will make it significantly less easy to lose your account in the first
place because you're protected with two factor authentication.
But when you add two factor authentication
you are forced in some cases to add more backup methods.
And in fact you can use SMS on your phone.
I think you can use an email address.
More Interestingly you can use an Authenticator.
App like Google Authenticator or Authy or several compatible options.
You can use a security key, a.
YubiKey or something like that.
And perhaps most importantly you can
generate recovery codes right then and there that.
You can then use later.
You print them off, you save them somewhere safe and then when you need.
To regain access to your account you can use the recovery codes to get back in.
But you must have done this before you need the access and that's true
for all of this which is why I'm
emphasizing so strongly that you use this as an opportunity to review your.
Account recovery information right now.
Make sure that you've got email addresses that are there and up to date.
That you have access to.
Make sure you've got phone numbers that are there and up to date that.
You have access to.
Add two factor authentication and make sure.
That you've got an appropriate number
of alternate recovery mechanisms for two factor because those will also help you
get back into your account should would you ever lose access for comments?
For updates?
For related links and more, visit AskLeo.com/146140.
I'm Leo Notenboom and this is Askleo.com. Thanks for watching.