In today’s digitally connected world, guarding your personal information online has become more important than ever. One common piece of data that many people overlook when securing their online profiles is their birth date. While it’s perfectly normal to want friends to wish you a happy birthday each year, exposing your full date of birth publicly can pose risks—ranging from identity theft to targeted scams.
TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read):
Hiding your birthday on Facebook is a smart privacy move. It not only prevents identity theft but also keeps strangers from learning too much about you. You can customize who sees your birthday or remove it entirely from your profile. Facebook allows granular privacy settings, so updating this is quick and straightforward.
Why You Should Hide Your Birthday on Facebook
Many people may not realize that a full date of birth—day, month, and year—can be a critical puzzle piece for someone trying to commit identity theft. Along with your full name and city of residence, this information can help cybercriminals access financial records or social media accounts, engage in impersonation, or even perform unauthorized background checks.
- Protect Against Identity Theft: Your date of birth can be used to verify your identity for sensitive processes, such as recovering account passwords.
- Prevent Unwanted Solicitation: Marketers may aggregate public data from social networks to build consumer profiles.
- Limit Oversharing of Personal Data: Oversharing, even unintentionally, can lead to reputational risk and a loss of personal control over your information.
It’s best to take a cautious approach. Facebook offers customizable privacy settings that allow you to hide your birthday from the public or even from friends entirely.
Step-by-Step Instructions to Hide Your Birthday
Facebook provides users with flexible privacy controls for profile details, including birthdays. Here’s how to hide your birthday effectively using either the desktop or mobile version of Facebook.
Using Facebook on a Desktop Browser:
- Log in to your Facebook account.
- Go to your profile by clicking on your name or display picture.
- Click on the “About” tab below your cover photo.
- From the left sidebar, select “Contact and Basic Info.”
- Scroll down to find your birth date and birth year. Hover over each item and click the pencil icon to edit.
- Click the audience selector (a small icon resembling a globe, friends, or lock). Choose “Only Me” to hide it from everyone.
- Repeat for both birth date and birth year fields.
- Click Save to confirm the changes.
Using Facebook Mobile App:
- Open the Facebook app and log in.
- Tap on your profile picture in the bottom or top menu (depending on your device).
- Select “Edit Profile.”
- Scroll down and tap on “Edit Your About Info.”
- Go to “Basic Info.”
- Tap on the birth date and birth year fields respectively and choose the privacy icon to adjust visibility.
- Set both to “Only Me.”
- Tap Save.
Once completed, your birthday will no longer appear to friends or the public, and Facebook will stop generating birthday notifications about you.
How to Test If Your Birthday is Actually Hidden
After updating privacy options, it’s a good idea to double-check if the changes are in effect. Here’s how you can do that safely:
- Ask a trusted friend to visit your profile and check whether your birthday information is visible.
- Use the “View As” feature on Facebook by going to your profile and selecting the triple-dot icon next to your profile picture. Choose “View As” to simulate what the public sees.
If you see no birthday listed in public or friend view, your settings have been successfully updated.
Can I Hide My Birthday From Some People But Not Others?
Yes. If you don’t want to remove your birthday from everyone but still want certain people to see it, Facebook allows you to customize your audience for both birthday and birth year separately.
- To allow only a select group of people (like close family), choose “Custom” in the visibility settings.
- You can include or exclude specific friends or friend lists.
Remember that Facebook separates the birth date (the day and month) from the birth year. You could, for example, let friends see your birthday as “June 15” without disclosing the year, keeping your age private.
What Happens When You Hide Your Birthday?
Once your birthday is hidden:
- Other users won’t see it on your profile.
- Your friends will not receive notifications or see reminders about your birthday.
- You won’t appear in Facebook’s birthday lists or calendars.
This could mean fewer birthday wishes. However, it also significantly improves your online privacy. For many, that’s a worthwhile trade-off.
Should You Remove Your Birthday Entirely?
Currently, Facebook does not allow users to completely delete their birthday once it’s added. However, you can change the visibility of this information so that it is functionally invisible to everyone, including friends.
If you no longer want to share your birthday in any form, setting it to “Only Me” for both the date and year is your most effective option.
Additional Safety Tips Related to Your Birthday
Hiding your birthday is only one facet of online privacy. Here are a few additional precautions you should consider:
- Avoid using your birthday as part of your passwords. This is an easy guess for anyone with public access to your profile.
- Be careful about other apps and games linked to your Facebook account. Many gather profile information, including your birthday.
- Limit who can see your full friend list or tag you in posts. Social engineering scams often begin with publicly available connections and data.
By using these additional safety measures, you make it harder for potential bad actors to use your personal information against you.
Conclusion
While it may seem like a small detail, hiding your birthday on Facebook can go a long way in protecting your online identity and personal privacy. The steps are simple, and the peace of mind it brings is well worth the few minutes it takes to change your settings.
Whether you prefer to keep it visible to a small group of loved ones or want complete privacy, Facebook’s flexible options make it easy to control who knows when you were born. In a world where digital footprints are increasingly permanent, managing your information is not just advisable—it’s essential.
Take action today. Small privacy steps lead to large security benefits down the line.