Why putting your holiday plans on Facebook is an invitation to crooks
By Jack Doyle
Last updated at 12:15 PM on 23rd October 2010
Homeowners who insist on putting their holiday plans online face a crackdown from insurers. Anyone burgled after advertising their plans on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or applications to publish their exact location could end up targeted not just by crooks. The issue has emerged after insurance companies said they will take into account any potentially revealing messages when analysing claims.
Thousands unwittingly expose their whereabouts to friends on Facebook and now insurance companies are going to take any messages into account when analysing claims
Research into the online activities of users of social networking sites found that thousands regularly leave themselves open to their homes being raided. There are now 26million users of Facebook in the UK and more than 18million using Twitter. A survey from The Co-operative Insurance of 3,000 has found a third of Britons who use the sites unwittingly put themselves at risk of being burgled.
Some 36 per cent use the sites to update friends on their whereabouts, while 35 per cent count down to events such as holidays, potentially alerting criminals to when their home will be empty. Separately Legal & General surveyed nearly 3,000 customers and discovered 40 per cent think that location-based social network services such as Foursquare or Facebook are risky as they inform would-be burglars of their whereabouts.
David Neave, of The Co-operative Insurance, said he could envisage a future where claims could be rejected if it was discovered that someone had been reckless with personal information they had posted on a social networking site. He added it was perfectly possible some insurance companies may in a few years start to monitor the social networking activity of their customers.
Mr Neave said: ‘Somebody will do it. That’s the nature of the industry we are in.’ Many celebrities, such as pop star Lily Allen, post their locations on the web, potentially raising the risk of a raid on their homes while they are away. In October Miss Allen posted on Twitter: ‘Oh god, foreign office have put people travelling to France on high terror alert!!! I’m in Paris already.’
Experts said burglars could use the online information with published electoral roll data – which is also online – to track down an address. They can also use Google Street View to ‘scope’ out a property before they go there, it was claimed. Michael Fraser, from the Beat The Burglar TV show, said the availability of information online was a ‘modern burglar’s dream’. He added: ‘The emerging popularity of location-based services adds a very worrying dimension to this problem.’
By Jack Doyle
Last updated at 12:15 PM on 23rd October 2010
Homeowners who insist on putting their holiday plans online face a crackdown from insurers. Anyone burgled after advertising their plans on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or applications to publish their exact location could end up targeted not just by crooks. The issue has emerged after insurance companies said they will take into account any potentially revealing messages when analysing claims.
Thousands unwittingly expose their whereabouts to friends on Facebook and now insurance companies are going to take any messages into account when analysing claims
Research into the online activities of users of social networking sites found that thousands regularly leave themselves open to their homes being raided. There are now 26million users of Facebook in the UK and more than 18million using Twitter. A survey from The Co-operative Insurance of 3,000 has found a third of Britons who use the sites unwittingly put themselves at risk of being burgled.
Some 36 per cent use the sites to update friends on their whereabouts, while 35 per cent count down to events such as holidays, potentially alerting criminals to when their home will be empty. Separately Legal & General surveyed nearly 3,000 customers and discovered 40 per cent think that location-based social network services such as Foursquare or Facebook are risky as they inform would-be burglars of their whereabouts.
David Neave, of The Co-operative Insurance, said he could envisage a future where claims could be rejected if it was discovered that someone had been reckless with personal information they had posted on a social networking site. He added it was perfectly possible some insurance companies may in a few years start to monitor the social networking activity of their customers.
Mr Neave said: ‘Somebody will do it. That’s the nature of the industry we are in.’ Many celebrities, such as pop star Lily Allen, post their locations on the web, potentially raising the risk of a raid on their homes while they are away. In October Miss Allen posted on Twitter: ‘Oh god, foreign office have put people travelling to France on high terror alert!!! I’m in Paris already.’
Experts said burglars could use the online information with published electoral roll data – which is also online – to track down an address. They can also use Google Street View to ‘scope’ out a property before they go there, it was claimed. Michael Fraser, from the Beat The Burglar TV show, said the availability of information online was a ‘modern burglar’s dream’. He added: ‘The emerging popularity of location-based services adds a very worrying dimension to this problem.’
