With the advent of social networks and connected profiles, many users have lost a bit of their privacy. And now, not only can anyone know what you are doing, but they can also know exactly what game you are playing. Are you afraid that someone will discover your love for Just Dance ? Don’t worry, there is a way to hide your tastes.
Privacy on Xbox
The Xbox interface has evolved a lot in recent years, and we have gone from that side panel menu that surprised Xbox 360 to a more orderly and better distributed interface where content has the greatest role. But if there is something that has also greatly improved, it is related to privacy, and that is an aspect that is also extremely important when it comes to protecting our privacy, especially when the console is used by minors.
Why is it interesting to take care of online privacy?
The amount of information that can be extracted by reviewing an online profile could surprise you more than you think. Without knowing it, you could be sharing a lot of information, since depending on the privacy settings you have established, any internet user could find out all this information:
- Know if you are online
- Know what you are seeing or hearing
- Know your history of games and applications
- See what you look like
- Know your real name
- View your friends list
- Speak to you by surprise in a voice chat
- See your screenshots
How can I protect my account?
Knowing all these details, you probably now think that it would be a good idea to protect your account against peepers and curious, however, you can rest easy, as Xbox helps you configure privacy the first time you log into a console. The problem is that this configuration is not personalized, so some aspects may not fit your preferences, so we are going to explain how to completely configure the privacy of your profile on an Xbox console.
- The first thing you will have to do is access the Settings panel
- In the Account section, select the Privacy and online security option
- Select Xbox Privacy
In this section you will be able to know what type of privacy level you have selected. If you are currently using the account of a minor, ideally it should be configured in the predefined option for children, but as we are going to see below, we can further customize the options.
The default options help to have a quick setup depending on the person who will be using the Xbox. This option will be configured in each profile, being able to choose between a more comfortable privacy with which everyone can see your list of friends and a large number of details, or a more moderate one with which to avoid too many peepers. The third default option is the one for children, which offers much more privacy.
Customize the privacy of an Xbox profile
With the idea of having total control of your privacy, the most interesting thing is that you select the Custom option. Do so, and then click on View details and customize. On the next screen you will be able to define with much more precision each and every one of the aspects related to the privileges and permissions of your Xbox profile, so take a few minutes if you want to have absolute control of what they can find out about you.
- Connection status and history : In this section we can define who can see what you are doing or what game or application you are using. You can also select who can know what you are watching or listening to and if you will allow them to see your history of games and applications.
- Profile: The Xbox profile can include details such as a short biography, your location, your real name, the name by which you will be found online. In this section you can select who can access this data, if everyone, friends or no one.
- Friends and clubs : This is the option where you can allow or block the possibility of adding new friends to your list of acquaintances (very useful for the little ones), who can see your list of friends, if you can join or create clubs and even who can see which clubs you are signed up for.
- Multiplayer connection : Online gaming can be another toxic source, so in this section you can decide if you can join multiplayer games, if you can join games from other networks (cross-play with PC or PlayStation), if other people can communicate with you by voice, text or invitations and if you can communicate by voice in other services outside of Xbox (PC and PlayStation).
- Game content : This section will be in charge of controlling everything related to the captures and clips of the games. You can select who can see your captures and even if you will have permission to enable the live broadcast of your game or share content created by a webcam.
- Sharing outside of Xbox : Here you will define who can share you content on social networks, as well as whether you can share content outside the Xbox network yourself.
- Buy and download : This option is only used to request the profile password each time you try to make a purchase in the Store.
The easiest way to hide if you are connected
All these privacy details are extremely important, but if you just want to be connected on Xbox Live without any contact knowing that you are online, all you have to do is activate the ” Show offline ” mode in your profile. To do so, you will only have to do the following:
- Press the guide button on your Xbox controller
- Scroll to your profile tab (your avatar icon)
- Click on your profile
- Scroll down to the Show online option and select ” Show offline “
Now you will continue to be connected to the Xbox Live network, you will be able to play multiplayer games and download games and applications from the Store, but no one in your contacts or any other user will know that you are connected, since you will appear publicly as offline. Another option that you can also use is ” Do not disturb “, something that will help prevent them from sending you messages or trying to open chat groups while you are playing or watching a movie.
