Trends Hut

With many adults in the UK using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, a large number are updating on their actions and whereabouts without considering the associated risks.

According to research by The Co-operative Insurance, 70% of adults in the UK using social networking websites.


Over a third of these though use such as Facebook and Twitter to make people aware of a whole range of personal information – such as where they are, what they are doing, when they are off on holiday etc.
They also divulge information about their date of birth, marital status and family details. In isolation this may seem harmless but collectively in the wrong hands may result in a number of problems.

Divulging personal information puts people at risk of identity theft but detailing when you are away from your home puts you at greater risk from burglary of your home and theft of your personal possessions, such as your car.

Giving this level information is done even though almost two thirds of UK adults believe that they would not be able to make a claim on their home insurance, due to a burglary, if they had clearly documented their movements on social networking websites.

David Neave, Director of General Insurance at The Co-operative Insurance, said: “A common sense approach when using social networking websites is key.

You have to ask yourself ‘would I be happy to divulge this information normally?’ If not, you shouldn’t make people aware of it online.”

He added “Unfortunately, whilst the majority of people use these websites as they are intended, there is a minority group which will be using them for their own illegal gains and therefore it is very important to be vigilant and err on the side of caution when updating statuses.”

We guessed the latest batch of Facebook phone rumors from this morning wouldn’t be the last we’d hear about the supposed INQ mobile/Facebook collaboration, and on cue a new set of tidbits have arrived.  GigaOm have been piecing together their own sources and have fleshed things out a little: they say Bloomberg’s H1 2011 timescale is over-confident but that the first network to see the Facebook phone will be Hutchinson’s 3, likely with a Spotify bundle in tow.  While they reiterate that the vaunted AT&T deal hasn’t been finalized yet, they also say that, if Spotify manage their predicted December US launch, access could also be bundled on the AT&T version of the smartphone(s)....

Pew Internet has just completed a survey of nearly 2000 mobile users in the US and has come up with some not particularly startling statistics about phone and app usage. Still, it’s good to have some cold hard numbers to look at, even if the sample size seems a bit small. Here are a few highlights from the survey and writeup:

• 23% of Americans are now landline-free
  Higher than I expected. I suspect a fair amount of people with land lines these days are more or less required to have them as part of a internet or cable deal.
• 24% of mobile users are active app users
  That is, 24% use their apps regularly, as opposed to simply having apps sitting there on their phone.
• Apps rank low on non-voice activities
  Pew mentions that many apps are used for such things as text messages, picture taking, and so on, but the structure of the survey didn’t allow for this kind of flexibility.
• 13% of users have paid for an app
  Whether this is high or low is kind of a matter of perspective. Two years ago this number was probably more like 2%.
• Median number of installed apps is 10, average is 18
  You seem to be either a light or a heavy app user, not too many people in between. This stat likely owes a lot to the age gap as well. The young people have way more apps than the geezers....
  

People said it would happen with Foursquare, it may have already happened with Twitter, and now the trend has continued on Facebook: Burglars in Nashua, New Hampshire looked at updates from Facebook to figure out when one target wasn’t at home.
Police caught three young men who had used “social networking sites like Facebook to identify victims who posted online that they would not be home at a certain time,” according to local news station WMUR 9.
That said, don’t jump to conclusions. The burglars weren’t using the new Facebook Places location system, despite implications by The Huffington Post and other web publications. Facebook released the following statement published by NECN:

We’ve been in contact with the Nashua police, and they confirmed that they while they have an ongoing investigation and have already made a number of arrests, the only Facebook link was that one of those arrested had a Facebook friend who posted about leaving town in the near future (which is why they believe that home was targeted) and it had nothing to do with Facebook Places. The police confirmed that the other burglaries had nothing to do with Facebook altogether.

These particular burglars performed more than 50 burglaries but they didn’t use Facebook Places, and they may have only targeted one person by looking at his Facebook page. But it goes to show that you should be careful even if you’re using Facebook’s privacy settings to make your updates viewable only to friends.
We’ve heard speculation that burglars would use Facebook status updates to target people in the past, but this time it looks like it’s not just talk. So let this be a warning: Be careful what you include in your social media updates.
 Trends Hut
This Article is written by Samuel Axon