In the old days, thieves would scout out neighborhoods to see when someone would be gone from their house. Now, all it takes is a quick Google search. If you’re traveling over the holidays, and you publicly share your travel plans on the Internet, you’re practically asking for someone to break-in to your home.
To help make sure you don’t have to spend New Years on the phone with your insurance agent, consider sharing your travel plans only with the people who need to know them. If you absolutely must tell the world you’re visiting old Aunt Melba, don’t say when you’ll be leaving and for how long you’ll be gone. Conversely, if you’re known for spending a lot of time online, don’t drop off the grid all together. Your disappearance from all forms of web communication could be just as big a clue that you’re house is unoccupied.
While it may seem like a silly precaution (“What criminal is going to take the time to follow little old me on Twitter?”), most crimes are crimes of opportunity. Don’t give a burglar the opportunity and incentive to enter your vacant home because of your Facebook addiction. Never underestimate the risk of oversharing online and use a more private form of communication to make your holiday plans.
3 comments ↓
This is just silly. More media hysteria! Don’t we have some real issues to cover, rather that write this fear-mongering inaccurate waste of space?
I’m sorry you disliked the article, however I don’t believe it’s an invalid issue. We are not the only ones talking about it either. Just check this article from Mashable (http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/twitter-related-burglary/) which I also included in the post.
[...] how easily could they establish your pattern of behavior? Before Christmas, we advised our readers not to share their travel details online to help protect their homes from burglary. If you’re using Foursquare all the time, [...]
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