PROTECTING YOURSELF ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Criminals can use personal information from your social media accounts to commit identity theft. They can also use the information in ‘social engineering’ calls, which are when a scammer gains your confidence because they’ve found out a little bit about you.
A criminal can gather different pieces of information about you from places like Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram and use it to create a profile of you, and use that for malicious purposes.
What not to share on social media
Personal details. Don’t publish your date of birth, passport, drivers licence, financial information or even the names of your children, partner or pets.
Address. Never share information or images that reveal your home address and protect postal box locations too.
Phone number. The people that you know should already know how to contact you.
Location. Never share information or images that identify where you are, especially dates that you’ll be away on holiday or travelling for work. This could let criminals know when to break into your house.
Private events. If you’re attending or hosting a private event, don’t share the details.
Personal images. Only share images that you would feel comfortable if they were seen by a lot of people. What you share on the Internet could be available forever, to anyone.
Safe social media practices
- Only connect with people you know.
- Change your privacy and security settings so you only share information with people you know.
- Use strong passwords and Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) across all your social media accounts.