3 Top Safety Risks of Social Media

Keep­ing you and your home safe requires pri­va­cy. But is pri­va­cy even pos­si­ble in today’s social media world? Although it’s become eas­i­er than ever to stay in touch with fam­i­ly and friends, the risk to your secu­ri­ty is greater than ever.

Social media updates can some­times inform would-be bur­glars and put you and your fam­i­ly at risk. You might be expos­ing too much of your­self with the abil­i­ty to tag, check in, and post per­son­al pho­tographs across the web.

Under­stand­ing how to keep your social media pri­vate will ensure that you pro­tect your prop­er­ty from unwant­ed vis­i­tors. You’ll be able to stay con­nect­ed with those you love and keep valu­able infor­ma­tion away from pry­ing eyes.

Let­ting Oth­ers Track You

The sad truth is that pri­va­cy is lim­it­ed in the online world. There are count­less ways that hack­ers and crim­i­nals can access per­son­al infor­ma­tion.

But it’s not just the infor­ma­tion you share with oth­ers. Many social media plat­forms gath­er data relat­ed to your loca­tion that can make it easy to track your activ­i­ties in the real world.

There are apps that are designed to share your loca­tion with oth­ers through “check-ins” and oth­er noti­fi­ca­tions. The intent is to allow you to con­nect with oth­ers near­by who share sim­i­lar inter­ests. The unin­tend­ed con­se­quence is that it broad­casts when you’re away from your home.

Deac­ti­vate any GPS or geo­t­rack­ing set­tings in your apps when you post to avoid giv­ing out infor­ma­tion on your loca­tion.

There’s Nobody Home

Shar­ing pho­tos and updates while on vaca­tion lets oth­ers know where you are… and where you aren’t. Even worse, announc­ing how long you’ll be on vaca­tion gives poten­tial bur­glars a spe­cif­ic win­dow for them to attack.

The best way to avoid this prob­lem is to share your pho­tos and vaca­tion infor­ma­tion after you return home. You might have to delay the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of shar­ing with oth­ers, but you’ll be pro­tect­ing your home in the long run.

Shar­ing Your Chil­dren’s Infor­ma­tion

One of social medi­a’s most com­mon safe­ty risks involves infor­ma­tion about your chil­dren. Many proud par­ents post pho­tos of their kids online. In some cas­es, they use these pic­tures as their own pro­file pho­tos, fur­ther dis­play­ing their kids to the pub­lic.

When these pho­tos include your children’s names, it is easy to rec­og­nize them in pub­lic. Know­ing their names gives indi­vid­u­als the abil­i­ty to approach them as a friend of the fam­i­ly.

This doesn’t mean you can’t share any per­son­al events with friends and fam­i­ly. But it does mean that you should pay atten­tion to the pri­va­cy set­tings you have in place while doing so. Although this may not be a full guar­an­tee, it can at least give you an added lev­el of pro­tec­tion.

Under­stand­ing the safe­ty risks of social media lets you pro­tect your­self and your fam­i­ly from any poten­tial secu­ri­ty threat. This includes con­fis­ca­tion of sen­si­tive data as well as intru­sion into your home.

Being safe when using social media should be a prac­tice that you share with your entire fam­i­ly. You’ll be able to stay con­nect­ed with your loved ones while keep­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers and your home free from harm.