If you use Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with people when you travel it can be risky. Here are some things you can do to help protect yourself?
Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools make it easy to keep up with friends and family when you’re traveling. You can tell people about the new restaurant you found in Paris or send them a photo - in real time - of yourself attending a big soccer match in Madrid. Then there are the location based social networking websites, such as Gowalla, Foursquare, and Facebook Places, that encourage you to post your location using mobile applications.
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It sounds like a lot of fun, right? Sure, but there are potential hazards in using these tools while you're on the road.
Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools make it easy to keep up with friends and family when you’re traveling. You can tell people about the new restaurant you found in Paris or send them a photo - in real time - of yourself attending a big soccer match in Madrid. Then there are the location based social networking websites, such as Gowalla, Foursquare, and Facebook Places, that encourage you to post your location using mobile applications.
It sounds like a lot of fun, right? Sure, but there are potential hazards in using these tools while you're on the road.
If you're going to be openly telling people that you're tweeting from your house and that you're leaving the house and that maybe the house going to be sitting empty for a while, you're opening yourself up to danger.
Indeed, several recently reported cases have proven that danger. An Indiana couple posted a Facebook update about their evening out in 2010, only to return home and find that their house had been robbed by someone who, in a home-surveillance video, looked like one of their Facebook "friends."
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Even if you stop posting your location on Facebook and Twitter, you might unwittingly reveal your whereabouts through other things you post. Photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped digital cameras and smartphones - even instant messages sent from smartphones - have geotags embedded in them that reveal where the photo or video was taken. A savvy person can unearth that geotag and even figure out the time the photo or video was taken.
Before you depart on your next trip, consider these precautions. Use Social networking sites wisely. Make it a rule to only 'friend' people that you would have lunch with. If you want to use social networking sites for marketing and branding, you can be more inclusive, but be sure to use the site's privacy functions so that only "friends," not "friends of friends, " can see your posts. You can also have a private site for family and close friends, where you reveal more, and a separate public site, where you post career information.
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Be patient. You don't have to upload photos in real time. Wait until you get home and then post them. And post your vacation blog after you return. People will still enjoy learning about your exploits after you're back.
Be patient. You don't have to upload photos in real time. Wait until you get home and then post them. And post your vacation blog after you return. People will still enjoy learning about your exploits after you're back.
Be smart about geotags. Geotags are easy to disable. If you don't want people to know where you are via your photos and tweets, go to the settings on your camera, smartphone, and Twitter account and simply turn the geotags off.
There are times, however, when geotagging can be helpful. If you are going somewhere dangerous or with political unrest you would want to make sure your geo-location is turned on, because should anything happen, you will want to immediately be able to send out a messages with your location tagged, to let people know that you are okay.
Like most things, today's technologies can be used for good or ill. Being aware of the benefits and risks will make you a smarter traveler.
Tech Savvy Travel Tips
Tech Savvy Travel Tips
