How to Protect Your Privacy on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become the digital backbone of the professional world. It is your resume, your networking tool, and your personal branding platform all rolled into one. Having a polished, public profile is no longer optional for most career paths; it is a necessity for being discovered by recruiters, connecting with colleagues, and staying relevant in your industry. But this professional visibility comes with a hidden cost: your privacy.

By default, LinkedIn is designed for maximum openness. It wants you to share, to connect, and to be seen. Every connection you make, every skill you endorse, and every profile you view creates a data point. This data can be used by salespeople to target you, by data brokers to build a profile on you, and even by your current employer to monitor your career ambitions.

Many users feel trapped. They believe they must choose between being visible for career opportunities and protecting their personal information. But it doesn’t have to be a binary choice.

You can have a powerful, effective LinkedIn presence while maintaining a strong grip on your privacy. It just requires a strategic, intentional approach to your settings. This comprehensive guide will walk you through a “Privacy Audit” of your LinkedIn account, transforming it from a wide-open book into a carefully curated professional portfolio.

The Mindset Shift: Public vs. Private

Before we dive into the settings, you must decide on your strategy. Your privacy needs depend on your current situation.

The “Active Job Seeker” Mode

If you are unemployed or actively looking for a new job, you need to be highly visible. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for recruiters to find you and contact you. In this mode, some privacy settings will be relaxed.

The “Passive Candidate” / “Stealth Mode”

If you are currently employed but open to opportunities, or if you simply want to maintain your network without broadcasting your every move, you need to be more discreet. This is “Stealth Mode.” It is about making sure your current boss doesn’t see that you are suddenly updating your profile at 2 AM.

This guide will provide recommendations for both, but will lean toward the more private “Stealth Mode” as a baseline.

Phase 1: The Visibility Audit (Who Sees What?)

This is the core of your LinkedIn privacy. You need to control who can see your profile, your updates, and your connections.

Navigate to your settings: Click your “Me” icon in the top right > Settings & Privacy. We will be spending most of our time in the “Visibility” and “Data privacy” tabs.

Profile Viewing Options

• The Setting: Visibility > Profile viewing options.
• The Options: You have three choices for when you view someone else’s profile:
  1. Your name and headline (Public): They see “John Doe, Project Manager at XYZ Corp.”
  2. Private profile characteristics (Semi-Private): They see “Someone in the Marketing Industry” or “Student from Stanford University.”
  3. Private mode (Anonymous): They see “Anonymous LinkedIn Member.”
• The Strategy:
  • Job Seeker: Stay Public. You want people to see you are looking at their profile; it can prompt them to look back at yours.
  • Stealth Mode: Switch to Private mode. This is crucial if you are researching recruiters or looking at the profiles of people at a competitor company. It prevents your activity from showing up in their “Who’s viewed your profile” feed, which could alert your current employer.

Edit Your Public Profile

This setting controls what people who are not logged into LinkedIn can see when they Google your name.

• The Setting: Visibility > Edit your public profile.
• The Strategy: You want Google to find you, but you don’t want it to show everything.
  • Keep ON: Your profile photo, name, headline, and summary.
  • Turn OFF: Your full work history, education details, and articles. A recruiter can log into LinkedIn to see these details. You don’t need your entire resume indexed on Google for the public to see.

Who Can See Your Connections

By default, your entire network of connections is visible to all of your other connections. This is a goldmine for salespeople and recruiters who can “mine” your network.

• The Setting: Visibility > Who can see or download your connections.
• The Strategy: Toggle this to “Only you.” There is very little professional benefit to letting your connections see each other, but there is a significant privacy risk.

Who Can See Your Last Name

• The Setting: Visibility > Who can see your last name.
• The Strategy: The default is to show your full name. You can change it to “First Name, Last Initial” (e.g., “John D.”). This makes it slightly harder for strangers to find you on other platforms. This is an extreme step, but useful for those in sensitive roles or who have experienced harassment.

Phase 2: The Activity Broadcast Audit (Controlling Your “Noise”)

LinkedIn loves to announce your every move. “Congratulate Jane on her new job!” “John updated his profile!” This “noise” can be a red flag to your current employer.

Sharing Profile Edits

This is the most critical setting for “Stealth Mode.”

• The Setting: Visibility > Share profile updates with your network.
• The Strategy: Toggle this to “Off.”
• Why: When this is on, every time you tweak a bullet point in your job description or add a new skill, LinkedIn broadcasts it to your network. This is the equivalent of sending up a flare that says, “I’m updating my resume!” Turn it off, make all your profile edits, and then you can turn it back on if you wish.

Mentioned by Others / Tagging

• The Setting: Visibility > Mentioned by others.
• The Strategy: Keep this On, but be aware. This setting allows others to tag you in posts or photos. If a colleague tags you in a post from a controversial conference, it appears on your profile. Periodically review your “Activity” feed to see where you have been tagged.

Who Can See Your Active Status

This is the “green dot” that shows you are currently online.

• The Setting: Visibility > Manage active status.
• The Strategy: Set this to “No one.” There is no professional reason for your entire network to know when you are browsing LinkedIn. It only creates pressure to respond instantly and allows people to monitor your activity patterns.

Phase 3: The Data Privacy Audit (Locking the Vault)

This section deals with how LinkedIn uses your data for its own purposes and shares it with third parties.

Salary Data on LinkedIn

• The Setting: Data privacy > Salary data on LinkedIn.
• The Strategy: If you have provided your salary data for LinkedIn’s salary estimator tool, it is anonymized. However, if you are uncomfortable with them having this data at all, you can delete it here.

Social, Economic, and Workplace Research

• The Setting: Data privacy > Social, economic, and workplace research.
• The Strategy: By default, you are opted-in to have your anonymized data used in research studies. Opt-out. You are giving away your data for free to help LinkedIn create reports.

Ad Personalization

LinkedIn uses your profile data to target ads at you.

• The Setting: Data privacy > Ad privacy.
• The Strategy: Go through each sub-setting and turn them OFF. This includes:
  • Profile data for ads: Stops them from using your job title or skills to target you.
  • Interest-based ads: Stops them from tracking your activity across the web to show you ads.

Who Can Download Your Email Address

When you connect with someone, they can download a data file of all their connections, which often includes your primary email address. This is how you get added to countless sales and marketing newsletters without your consent.

• The Setting: Visibility > Who can see or download your email address.
• The Strategy: Set this to “Only visible to me.” If a recruiter wants to contact you, they can use LinkedIn’s InMail messaging system. You can choose to share your email with them on a case-by-case basis.

Phase 4: Securing Your Account

Privacy is useless if your account gets hacked.

Two-Step Verification (2FA)

This is non-negotiable. It is the single best way to protect your account.

• The Setting: Sign in & security > Two-step verification.
• The Strategy: Turn it ON. Use an authenticator app (like Google Authenticator or Authy) rather than SMS (text message) if possible, as SMS is vulnerable to “SIM-swapping” attacks.

Where You’re Signed In

• The Setting: Sign in & security > Where you’re signed in.
• The Strategy: Periodically review this list of active sessions. Do you see a login from a strange device or a different country? That is a red flag. Click “Sign out” on any session you don’t recognize and change your password immediately.

Permitted Services

Over the years, you may have connected third-party apps to your LinkedIn account.

• The Setting: Data privacy > Other applications > Permitted services.
• The Strategy: Review this list and “Remove” access for any app you no longer use. Each connection is a potential security vulnerability.

The Job Seeker’s “Stealth Mode” Checklist: A Summary

If you are currently employed and starting a job hunt, follow this specific sequence to avoid tipping off your boss.

1. Turn OFF “Share profile updates with your network.” (Critical first step).
2. Go into Anonymous Mode (“Private mode”).
3. Start researching: Look up recruiters, companies, and potential hiring managers. They won’t see your activity.
4. Overhaul your profile: Update your headline, rewrite your summary, and add new skills and accomplishments.
5. Turn ON “Open to Work” (for Recruiters Only): LinkedIn has a feature that allows you to signal you are job hunting, but it will attempt to hide this status from people at your current company. Go to your profile and click “Open to” > “Finding a new job.” Crucially, select “Recruiters only,” not “All LinkedIn members.”
   • Disclaimer: This feature is not foolproof. It is an algorithm. There is a small chance a recruiter at your own company could see it.
6. Turn Profile Sharing Back On (Optional): Once your profile is updated, you can turn sharing back on if you want your network to see future updates (like new certifications).

Conclusion

Your LinkedIn profile is a powerful tool, but like any tool, it must be handled with care and intention. By default, it is configured to serve the interests of the platform and its advertisers. By taking an hour to go through these settings, you reconfigure it to serve your interests.

Protecting your privacy on LinkedIn is not about hiding. It is about curation. It is about consciously deciding what information you share, who you share it with, and how it is used. It is the difference between letting your professional story be written by algorithms and data scrapers and being the author of your own career narrative.

Perform this audit today, and set a calendar reminder to review your settings once a year. Your digital reputation is one of your most valuable professional assets. Protect it.