What the Tech? Remember Your Facebook Trusted Contacts
When did you first sign up for Facebook? For most of us it was at least eight years ago.
You might have signed up using an email account you don’t use anymore, or you may have simply
forgotten it.
For the past several years you’ve simply opened the Facebook app on your phone or logged-in on the website with the username and password already entered. If that’s you, you need to do something pretty quick before you get locked out forever.
I get this question from time to time and I will occasionally see friends post to Facebook that they’ve been locked out of their account and had to start a new profile from scratch.
Simply because something happened to keep them from logging in using the email address they used
when they first signed up.
Facebook can’t, or won’t help anyone access an account for privacy reasons. Even if you try to prove that it really is your account, without the information you used when you started an account, you will not gain access again. Fortunately, Facebook has a tool that enables anyone to get back into their account using some of their Facebook friends.
It’s called ‘Trusted Friends’ or ‘Trusted Contacts’ and you can find it in Facebook Settings under Security and Login.
Using this security feature you will need to choose 3-5 Facebook friends you trust. You’ll have to do this before getting locked out of course. Once you’ve chosen them, should you get locked out, you’ll need to call them on the phone and ask them to visit the website www.facebook.com/recover.
Once they visit that site they’ll receive a code which they will share with you. Once all of those trusted contacts send you their code, you can recover Facebook account and set a new username and password.
I’d say it could be a life-saver but that might be over-dramatic, but it could save the life you have stored on Facebook including photos you have uploaded.
