Facebook is rolling out a new tool for safeguarding your account. But not everyone will see this just yet. For now, they’re pushing this feature out to high-profile accounts and business pages with significant reach. You may see this pop-up for you if you are a politician, for example, or run a Business Page with thousands of Likes on it.

Unfortunately, when Facebook does reach out to someone about their new Protect feature, it presents as a scam. The sender’s email looks fishy and the message urges to you act soon, lest you be locked out.

If you get a notification for Facebook Protect, please understand that it is probably legitimate. And if you ignore it for too long, you truly could get locked out of your Facebook account!

If you get an email or notification about this, cooperate with it if you are comfortable doing so. If you aren’t 100% sure, you can still satisfy the Facebook Protect requirement without clicking on the email:

  • Open Facebook.com in your computer’s web browser.
  • Click the triangle button in the upper-right corner, click Settings & Privacy, click Settings.
  • On the left, click Security & Login, then to the right, look for Facebook Protect and click Get Started.

You cannot sign up for Facebook Protect before you are invited, so if you can’t do this now, no worries! There’s nothing to do until you get a notice that you should activate this.