Give friends keys to your Facebook account with ‘Trusted Contacts’

Facebook is rolling out a new feature Thursday that lets users locked out of their accounts get back in with the help of their friends.

The new feature, called “Trusted Contacts,” lets a user pick up to five friends to receive security codes if the user cannot get into his or her social network account.

“Think of it like giving your house key to a friend when you go on vacation -- pick the friends you trust the most,” the social network said. “Facebook will send codes to the friends you selected and they can pass along that information you need to access your account.”

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Trusted Contacts would be handy in a situation where a user can’t remember his or her password and also can’t get access into the email address where a recovery message would typically be sent in a situation of a forgotten password.

To set up the feature, users should head to their security settings. There, they can choose between three and five users they trust to be used for Trusted Contacts. Facebook recommends choosing as many as possible to increase your chances of getting the codes easily and quickly.

Once users get at least three security codes, they can then enter them and be able to recover their account.

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