FACEBOOK is a fantastic tool to communicate with loved ones and share memories over the festive period – but sharing too much can have disastrous consequences.
Social media is an incredibly useful tool to keep in-touch with distant relatives and family over the festive period.
But be wary of the data you share on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram this Christmas.
#1 – Leaving Home For Christmas
It's nice to spend Christmas with friends and family away from home.
But there's no need to advertise to the world that your house will be left unattended over the festive period.
"Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter can be a risk if people know you are away and your home is empty," police officers have warned residents.
"Just because you are on holiday, does not mean burglars are taking time off too, and if you looks like you are away, then your home could become a target.
"The force is urging everyone to check their holiday security before they go away and ensure their holiday is one to remember for the right reasons."
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| It's easy to fall into the habit of sharing every thought online, but beware of the consequences |
And unless you're speaking to a small group of friends inside Facebook Messenger, your status and posts are available for all of your friends to see.
People can then copy and paste or screenshot these posts and share with people you might not know or trust.
#2 – Be Careful With Location Data
Location data is incredibly useful – it allows your smartphone to map out your entire photo collection across the globe, lets your friends track you down you in a busy city centre.
Popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter let users link their photographs, statuses and posts to a specific location.
Again, if you are sharing an update or photo about your delicious Christmas dinner – in a post tagged in another country, you can unintentionally reveal that your house in unattended.
There have been a number of cases in which criminals have been able to determine where victims lived based on where they geotagged the majority of their photos.
And remember – Twitter is a public social network. Unlike Facebook, the default settings ensure your profile, tweets and images are public and searchable by anyone – even those who do not have an account with the network.
#3 – Don't Advertise That You're Worth Robbing
Don't use your social media accounts to brag about your new Ultra HD 4K television set, video game console, surround sound system or other new gadgets and goodies.
For the same reason you shouldn't leave your car keys visible from the outside of your house, or leave valuable jewellery by the window – you need to be careful what you advertise on your social media account.
It's worth checking your Facebook privacy tools, too. The US social network firm recently announced it had indexed some two trillion posts.
Searching through the slew of text or photo updates, video posts, shared articles and comments shared on Facebook each and every day is now an easy task.
And any public post or update you published in the past is now eligible for public search, similar to social network rival Twitter.
#4 – Home Alone, or Vulnerable
It's easy to fall into the habit of sharing your every thought, musing or update from your personal or professional life on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
But a simple status about being bored that you have to spend the evening home alone again, or a quick-fire tweet about a troublesome landlord who still hasn't fixed the broken lock on your bedroom windows – could quickly land you in hot water.
It might sound paranoid, but its always worth considering the worst case scenario before you post a new status, tweet or Instagram snap.
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| Always consider who is able to see your social media posts before you hit publish |
If the information is online – it suddenly becomes dangerously easy to copy or share around.
Beware of the sum of all your updates or social media activity, too.
A couple of Instagram photos about your brand-new TV and pricey new necklace, coupled with an angry tweet about the broken windows and a Facebook status geotagged with your home address could be disastrous.
WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com – which has since been shutdown – was a website that scraped public Facebook updates, formatted and presented the data for easy consumption.
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| WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com highlighted the danger of publishing public posts on Facebook |
Data was sorted into a series of columns including Who Wants To Get Fired?, which contained statuses and posts from people complaint about their job or boss, Who's Taking Drugs?, populated with public posts which referenced illegal substance, Who's Got A New Phone Number?, which the site filled with statuses from people sharing a recently-updated phone number.
Each of these posts was linked back to the person's Facebook account, which contains personal information including your home address, contact information, date and place of birth, linked family members and job title.
WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com creator Callum Haywood published the website to raise awareness.
In the site's FAQ, he responds to the question "These people probably wouldn't want this info publishing, would they?" like this, "Probably not – but it was their choice, or lack of, with regards to their account privacy settings."
#5 – Be Particularly Careful When Posting About Others, Or Vulnerable Individuals
You might be more than happy to share photographs of yourself surrounded by gifts, out carolling with fiends or enjoying a drink by the fire in a hearty rural pub with family.
But that does not mean everyone in the photo or mentioned in the Facebook status wants to be identified.
It's always worth spending a second to consider the people you are implicating in your own social media update.
It's bad enough if you share that your front door lock is broken, or that you are spending Christmas away from home with family – but its even worse if another family member does it for you.
Children are particularly vulnerable – so avoid tagging them or sharing images with location data or other identifying features, such as a school uniform with the logo or name emblazoned on the chest.
And consider others when you choose the privacy settings for a particular post.
If your family members are more sensitive to sharing details of their activities across social media, then avoid tweeting or publishing a publicly available Instagram image.
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