Privacy in Second Life

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Second Life® is a very social world, but sometimes you just want some peace and quiet. Privacy has long been a concern of many Residents. This article explains how to get some time to yourself inworld.

Hide your online status from everyone except your friends and groups

In general, Residents who don't know you won't be able to see you online if they search in the People tab of the Search window. To ensure that others can't see you online unless they are your friends or members of a group you belong to:

1. Choose Me > Preferences > Privacy.
2. Uncheck Show me in Search results.
3. Check Only friends and groups know I'm online.

Hide your online status and location from friends

By default, friends are able to see you online, even if the Show me in Search checkbox in the Preferences window isn't selected. To control your online visibility on a per-friend basis, go to Me > Profile and click on the People icon. Choose a Resident from the list, click on the Gear icon next to his or her name, and choose Permissions. Deselect See my online status to hide your status from that Resident. Deselect See me on the map if you don't want your friend to be able to track your inworld location.

Go into busy mode

When you select Me > Status > Set busy, chat and instant messages are hidden, and an auto-reply is sent to those who IM you. You can customize this reply by opening the General tab of the PREFERENCES window and typing text into the Busy mode response field.

Warning: While you're in busy mode, inventory offers will also be rejected automatically. It's a good idea to make sure you're not in busy mode if you're making a purchase or expecting to receive gifts from friends.

Hide on an Estate

Private regions and estates, can be configured for geographical privacy. This means that if you have access to an island that others don't, they won't be able to teleport in or see what's happening. They can still IM you, but it's up to you whether you reply.

An Estate Owner or Manager sets privacy options from the Region/Estate window's Estate tab. If you own or manage an Estate, then you can adjust these settings yourself!

Each of the options has a ? button to tell you more about what it does, but in short: Deselecting the Allow Public Access checkbox restricts acccess to the Estate Owner, Manager(s), and people on the Allowed Residents and Allowed Groups lists.

See the articles on Estates for more information.

Live in a skybox

A "skybox" is basically a home that's many hundreds of meters in the sky.

If you own a parcel of land, you can have a skybox. To make one:

1. Rez a prim (right-click the ground and select Create).
2. Right-click it and select Sit Here.
3. Once seated, click the Object tab of the Tools window (you may need to click the More >> button to expand the tools).
4. Set Position (meters) Z to 500, which is a typical skybox height.

Watch this movie to see how it's done:

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Without a flight assist script, Residents will not be able to fly high enough to disturb you in your sky box. However, it's worth noting that more persistent Residents with such scripts will be able to get to you at that height.

Make use of the ACCESS tab for parcels you own

You can use the About Land window's ACCESS tab to control who can come in (select World > About Land to open the ABOUT LAND window). The ACCESS tab can be used to limit access to only specific groups or Residents, while the Ban tab enables you to specifically exclude individuals; using both tabs together, you should be able to get the right list of permitted Residents onto your parcel. Each tab sets access barriers at different heights around your parcel, however; see What are the parcel ban and access heights? for more details.

Related info for some of the above options can be found in the Preferences Guide.