From reconnecting with an old friend from school, to hearing about a friend’s job promotion or viewing photos of a colleague’s new baby – social media has made it easy for consumers to share exciting news – or just let their social media circles of friends know where they are getting their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, along with this sharing comes the opportunity for thieves to use the personal information to steal identities.
A recent study from TransUnion found that while many consumers were worried about having their identity stolen from a social media site, more than one third of respondents also included their personal information – birth date, address, employer, and phone number – in their profiles. This information could lead to identity theft.
“While social media is a great way for individuals to connect with others and exchange ideas, consumers should be careful what personal information they include in their profiles,” says Tersia van Rooyen, manager at TransUnion responsible for consumer education.
“Remember that the general rules of connecting and engaging with someone online remain the same in social media as they do everywhere – use common sense when giving someone else information about yourself or others.”
TransUnion provides the following tips to help social media users better safeguard their identity:
* Less is more – avoid giving out personal information on social media sites, such as address, phone number or birth date. Identity thieves can open accounts and commit a number of financial crimes with just this information.
* Do not leave a trail of cookies – do not save a password when on a public or work computer. Some social media sites automatically check this box under the sign in, so make sure it is never saved. If it saves, it may automatically bring up the account the next time someone else goes to that social media site.
* Lock it up – change privacy settings on all social media accounts, so that users have control of all the information that is posted. Set profiles to private, and make sure users have to approve any friend requests, comments, photo tags, links or posts that appear on the page.
* Get creative – create intricate passwords when users sign up for social media accounts. Change passwords to social media accounts every one to three months.
* Do not over-share – never give out travel plans over social media sites. In many instances, social media thieves have become actual thieves, taking this data and using it to rob people when they are out of town.
* Home school kids on social media – go through these social media guidelines with children. Although many young people are more adept at navigating the Internet, they may not fully understand the implications of posting private information, photos or potentially offensive material on the Internet.
* Monitor credit – users should make sure they periodically check their credit report for accuracy or changes and consider signing up for a credit monitoring service, which can alert users by e-mail to changes in a credit report – a helpful way to prevent identity theft.
