What a checkup is for
A privacy checkup is a scheduled look at what your accounts reveal, who can see it, and which other apps or people have been given access. It is not a one-time fix. Services change their features, you change your habits, and old choices drift out of date. A short routine, repeated, beats an exhaustive effort you never do again.
Plan on about an hour for the first pass and less after that. You do not have to finish in one sitting. Doing one account a day for a week works just as well.
Before you begin
Choose a quiet time, and gather three things.
- A list of accounts. Start with email, your main social media accounts, banking and payment accounts, online shopping, cloud storage and anything holding photos or messages. Add work or school accounts if you control their settings.
- A way to keep notes. A plain document is enough. Record the date, what you changed and anything to follow up on. Do not write passwords in it.
- Your phone and computer. Some choices live in the service and some in the device.
Work in priority order
Not all accounts carry equal risk. Start where a problem would hurt most.
- Email. Your inbox is usually the key to resetting other accounts. Check its security first.
- Financial accounts. Banking and payments.
- Primary social accounts. Where you share the most.
- Cloud storage and photos. Where much of your personal material sits.
- Everything else. Shops, forums, games and apps.
The five questions for each account
For each account, ask the same five questions. The wording of menus differs, so look for the idea.
1. Who can sign in?
Check security first. Confirm the password is unique and strong, and that two-step verification is switched on where it is available. Look at the list of devices or sessions currently signed in and sign out of any you do not recognize or no longer use. Review the recovery email and phone number: if these are outdated, someone else could end up with control, or you could be locked out. Do the account recovery options still point to things you own?
2. Who can see my information?
Look at profile visibility: name, photo, contact details, birthday, location, workplace, friends or followers lists. Then check the default audience for new posts. Try viewing your profile as a stranger would, if the service offers that feature, or open it in a logged-out browser window. Look at old posts too, since a change to the default may not apply to content you posted years ago.
3. Who can contact me or tag me?
Check who can send messages, friend requests, invitations or mentions. Consider whether tagged photos need your approval before appearing on your profile. Restricting contact to people you know is a common way to reduce nuisance and unwelcome attention.
4. What does the service keep and use?
Look for activity history, search history, location history and ad personalization. Decide what you want stored and for how long. Some services let history delete automatically after a period. Some provide a dashboard summarizing what has been collected, and many allow you to download a copy, which can be eye-opening.
5. What else is connected?
This one is easy to overlook. Check which third-party apps, websites and games have been granted access through “sign in with” connections. Remove anything you no longer use or do not recognize. Each connection is another place that can see your data.
Check your phone and browser too
Accounts are only half of it. On your phone, review which apps can use location, camera, microphone, contacts and photos, and remove permissions that are not needed for the app to do its job. The guide to app permissions describes this in more depth. In your browser, review saved passwords, autofill details such as addresses and card numbers, and installed extensions. Delete extensions you do not use.
Also check that your devices install software updates, since a patched device protects whatever settings you have chosen.
Look beyond settings
A checkup is a good time to notice what you have shared, not just what you have configured.
- Search your own name in a search engine and see what appears. This helps you judge your digital footprint.
- Scroll through your older posts and consider deleting or hiding anything that reveals too much, such as a home address, a child’s school, travel dates or documents.
- Look at your friends and followers. Remove accounts you do not know.
- Consider whether any old accounts could simply be closed.
Record and respond
At the end, write down what you changed and anything you could not finish. If you found a sign that something is wrong, such as an unfamiliar login, messages you did not send or alerts you did not request, change the password at once, sign out other sessions and contact the service. If money is involved, contact your bank or card issuer through the number on your card or their official site. If you think a crime has occurred, contact your local police.
Keep it light
Set a reminder for a regular date, such as the start of spring and autumn, or the day you change your clocks. Many people also pair a checkup with a trigger: a new phone, a data breach notice, a change of job or a service announcing new terms. Keep each pass brief. The aim is steady, modest improvement.
A checkup cannot guarantee that nothing will go wrong, and it cannot control what other people do with information you have already shared. But it reliably catches the common problems: forgotten access, outdated recovery details and audiences wider than you intended.