( CNN ) -- About one out of every four Facebook users lies on their profile , and not just to impress that guy or gal who would n't date them in high school . Sometimes , it 's about privacy . That was one of the findings of a Consumer Reports investigation released this week . Titled `` Facebook & Your Privacy , '' the report focuses on the ways people use the social-networking site to share information , and what happens to that information after they do . In a survey of 2,000 households , 25 % of users said they falsified information in their profiles to protect their identity , Consumer Reports said . That 's up from 10 % in a similar survey two years ago . The consumer-advocacy site attributed that rise to growing concerns about privacy . Some advocates , the report noted , want a national privacy law that holds all companies to the same privacy standards and lets consumers tell companies not to track them online . There are some limits to a person 's ability to prevaricate on the site . Facebook has a real-name policy . It requires a real e-mail address ( yes , you can create a dummy account that you only use to sign up for websites , but it 's still yours ) . And you ca n't join certain networks -- those for college students , for example -- without the right kind of address . `` One can almost be a totally different human on Facebook than in real life , '' wrote Rebecca Greenfield for The Atlantic . `` But , one can never escape their true selves , with the few details Facebook does not allow its users to fudge . '' Some users have been known to create profiles under false or incomplete names to hide from employers or job recruiters . Others list fake birthdays on the site to foil potential identity thieves . There have been several high-profile cases of fake Facebook identities . The 2010 documentary film `` Catfish '' chronicled the story of a lonely Michigan woman who created a false Facebook identity to flirt online with a New York man . Privacy , of course , is n't the only reason to skirt around the edges of the truth online . In January , ReadWriteWeb looked at some of the top reasons for faking a Facebook profile . Among them : . â€¢ People hide things about their identities that may be personally troubling or even dangerous if others knew . â€¢ In cases when a person is known professionally by a different name than his or her real one . â€¢ Just for laughs . Most folks , though , might not be fudging the facts . A 2010 study of college students in the United States and Germany revealed that they typically presented accurate versions of their personalities on Facebook and a similar German site . `` Online social networks are so popular and so likely to reveal people 's actual personalities because they allow for social interactions that feel real in many ways , '' said psychologist Mitja Back of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz , Germany , who published the report with colleagues in Psychological Science .
Study : About 25 % of Facebook users falsified information in profiles to protect their identity . The site has limits -- real names and real e-mail addresses are required . Comment: