The whole social networking phenomenon has billions of Canadian sharing their photos, favorite songs and details about
their class reunions on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and dozens of
similar sites. But there are a handful of personal details
that you should never say if you don’t want criminals — cyber or
otherwise — to rob you blind, according to Beth Givens, executive
director of the Privacy
Rights Clearinghouse.
The folks at Insure.com
also say that ill-advised Facebook postings increasingly can get
your insurance cancelled or cause you to pay dramatically more for
everything from auto to life insurance coverage. By now almost
everybody knows that those drunken party photos could cost you a
job, too.
You can certainly enjoy networking and sharing photos, but you
should know that sharing some information puts you at risk. What
should you
never say on Facebook, Twitter or any
other social networking site?
Your birth date and place
Sure, you can say what day you were born, but if you provide the
year and where you were born too, you’ve just given identity
thieves a key to stealing your financial life, said Givens. A study
done by Carnegie Mellon showed that a date and place of birth could
be used to predict most — and sometimes all — of the numbers in
your Social Security number, she said.
Vacation plans
There may be a better way to say “
Rob me, please” than
posting something along the lines of: “
Count-down to Maui! Two
days and Ritz Carlton, here we come!” on Twitter. But it’s
hard to think of one. Post the photos on Facebook when you return,
if you like. But don’t invite criminals in by telling them
specifically when you’ll be gone.
Home address
Do I have to elaborate? A study recently released by the Ponemon
Institute found that users of Social Media sites were at greater
risk of physical and identity theft because of the information they
were sharing. Some 40% listed their home address on the sites; 65%
didn’t even attempt to block out strangers with privacy settings.
And 60% said they weren’t confident that their “friends” were
really just people they know.
Confessionals
You may hate your job; lie on your taxes; or be a recreational user
of illicit drugs, but this is no place to confess. Employers
commonly peruse social networking sites to determine who to hire —
and, sometimes, who to fire. Need proof? In just the past few
weeks, an emergency
dispatcher
was
fired in Wisconsin for revealing drug use; a
waitress got canned for complaining about customers and the
Pittsburgh
Pirate’s mascot was dumped for bashing the team on Facebook.
One study done last year estimated that
8% of
companies fired someone for “misuse” of social
media.
Password clues
If you’ve got online accounts, you’ve probably answered a dozen
different security questions, telling your bank or brokerage firm
your Mom’s maiden name; the church you were married in; or the name
of your favorite song. Got that same stuff on the information page
of your Facebook profile? You’re giving crooks an easy way to guess
your passwords.
Risky behaviors
You take your classic Camaro out for street racing, soar above the
hills in a hang glider, or smoke like a chimney? Insurers
are increasingly turning to the web to figure out whether their
applicants and customers are putting their lives or property at
risk, according to Insure.com.
So far, there’s no
efficient way to collect the data, so cancellations and rate hikes
are rare. But the technology is fast evolving, according to a paper
written by Celent,
a financial
services research and consulting firm.
