Facebook now allows users to select three to five people as Trusted Contacts who can help the user get access to his/her Facebook account through a set of security codes. All they have to do is visit a secure link after logging in to their account and they will be asked if it’s really you who is trying to access the account. After confirmation, the contact will be shown a security code to be shared with you. Simply enter the codes from all the contacts you added to your Trusted Contacts list and add them into the recovery page option.
How to Enable Trusted Contacts on Facebook
To enable the Trusted Contacts feature, click on the privacy icon and select “See More Settings”.
From the sidebar, click on Security Settings and you will be able to find an option to enable Trusted Contacts from there.
Click on “Choose Trusted Contacts”, and it will ask you add at least three people to the list. The reason why you are required to select three contacts is because there are chances of one of them getting their accounts compromised. Make sure you add those people to the list who can be contacted via phone, and more importantly, that you trust them with this kind of information. After adding all the names, click Confirm.
You will be asked to enter your password as confirmation.
The people you will add to the Trusted Contacts list will be sent an email as well as a notification on Facebook that you have added them as a trusted contact. There is no option for the recipient to accept or reject this.
Later, if you decide to change the list of people you added to the Trusted Contacts, you can do so from the same security settings mentioned above. It should be noted that this feature is not yet available for every Facebook user and is still new. Hopefully, you will be able one of the users to receive the Trusted Contacts recovery option in case your account becomes compromised.
Is it Really Useful?
There are a lot of arguments both for and against this feature. Most importantly, how can you be one-hundred percent sure that the person you added to your Trusted Contacts list will not try to access your account? This may not be the most convenient method to recover your account. But personally, I think if you have Two-Factor Authentication on your Facebook account, it will be safe. In the end it’s up to you to decide whether it can be helpful to you or not. What are your thoughts about this new feature? Feel free to share your views using the comments section below.
