Yahoo News Why you shouldn't post ANYTHING on social while on hols
When it comes to holidays, we all already know you shouldn't put an ID tag on your luggage that has your name and address on it, right? Rather than adding to your security, it just highlights to potential burglars that your house is soon likely to be empty.
And now there's another piece of travel security advice doing the rounds: don't post anything on social media about your holiday before or while you're away. You may, in fact, be advertising essential information to burglars who are rummaging through social media feeds for any clues.
According to a study by Together Mutual Insurance, in the last 30 days more than 1.5 million posts containing information about people's holidays have been shared on social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These include airport locations of travel, check-ins, boarding passes and even photos of passports.
The study found that 68,000 people tagged their Instagram posts with a UK airport location, while 66,000 Brits discussed their holiday plans on Twitter.
Most of the photos posted at airports were of people, alcohol or planes. But a more concerning habit is of people posting images of their passports, which 8 per cent of people did, and boarding passes, which another 5 per cent 'fessed up to.
Come on, guys, this is gold to would-be burglars!
Metro reported that home security expert Friedland interviewed 50 ex-burglars recently to find out their techniques for researching jobs. Nearly 78 per cent of them used Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare to pick out potential homes to steal from. Disturbingly, 75 per cent said they used Google Street View to get a better feel of the property, too.
With this advice in mind, it may pay to wait until you get back from your hols to post that beautiful waterfall, yeah?
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