Research has shown that a significant number of offenders now use social media to identify their victims.

Failure to consider privacy and who might be looking at our posts leads social media users to:

Share images of expensive purchases

Share details of their daily routine

Tag their current location (e.g. at work, out for the evening)

Tell the world when they are going on holiday

Upload photos while they are still abroad

As a result, we are highlighting that our homes are potentially unoccupied, hence the risk of being burgled whilst on holiday has risen substantially in recent years. Burglars can use online material to both locate victims and time their break-ins to coincide with when the homes are unoccupied.

How can thieves get access to your social media accounts, and how can you keep them safe?

They find you by tracking your social media accounts and creating a fake account for you. They may even use accounts that have been compromised.

They keep an eye out for the following:

They’ll take any information they can acquire from Facebook, Instagram & other platforms.

Take care when on holiday

When sharing your holiday snaps, don’t get carried away and add too many location and time details; it’s preferable to do this when you’ve returned home.

Be careful not to reveal your daily routine online

The majority of burglaries occur between the hours of 6am and 6 pm, when most people are at work, at school, or engaged in outside activities. Even stating in a Gumtree post that buyers should “call after 6pm” indicates that you’re usually out during the day.

GPS location data

Your smartphone’s built-in GPS functionality may be used to incorporate your actual position into the file of images you take with the smartphone’s camera, depending on the settings. Geotagging is the technique of inserting geographical information into images. Criminals may put the geotag on your images to follow your movements or find out where you reside if you post them and they show up on the Internet.

Reverse image search

Burglars may easily determine who has written a travel blog post by doing a reverse image search if you upload a photo on your blog or website and share it on your personal social media accounts. Basically, a search engine like Google will show you all of the locations where the same photo has been shared, such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms.

Depending on how private your profiles are on those many accounts, obtaining your entire identity may be very simple; a search using your name may then show papers or directories with your personal address.

Think before you publish and use social media with caution. According to surveys, the greatest deterrent to housebreakers is still a burglar alarm, which is the most effective way to safeguard your house and family.

If you’re in the market for intruder alarms in Glasgow, call on Ultimate Alarms to get the best system for your house or flat. We fit only high quality Pyronix systems offering state-of-the-art security for your home with a wide range of customisable options to suit your needs.