May 09
13
Dangers of accepting strangers on FaceBook
Almost everyone has a FaceBook account and at least one other social media account. Debt collection agencies, employment agencies, government departments and dubious characters are using social media to gain information.
3 recent New Zealand cases from the past fortnight and one international case are briefly outlined below to highlight this issue. There was also a murder of a jealous lover who apparently used FaceBook to track his victim but we can not find suitable details to include in our list.
WINZ the New Zealand government department who distribute welfare within New Zealand actively use social media to track down benefit fraud. Their investigative unit in Wellington has recently attracted unwanted media attention when they caught a benefit fraudster via FaceBook. WINZ have not publicly disclosed their tactics but it does raise a general awareness that people should be careful what and who they add to their profiles.
Employment. At least 85% of employment agencies in New Zealand have either dedicated staff or it is part of their staff tasks to filter out candidates via social media such as FaceBook. Recently I spoke with an unnamed senior HR consultant who explained that a recent senior position had short listed 2 candidates. Candidate A was about to be told he/she could not get the job but then candidate B had a FaceBook profile that appeared to promote regular social drinking with friends. Hence candidate B was not employed.
It is certainly common to ask to network with employment consultants via professional networks such LinkedIn. In fact we promote this whether you are seeking a job or not.
Police have recently been in the media for a range of intuitive uses of social media including catching criminals and finding missing people.
Debt Collection Agency It is common practice for debt collection agencies to utilise social media to track down debtors whom they otherwise could not track down. Recently an American company gained much unwanted and wide spread media attention for the un-ethical use of social media to track down debtors.
Many email addresses can be tracked to a physical address as can a cell phone number or landline number. Users need to be cautious of what information is added to their online presence.
Below are some of the most common tactics used by ethical and unethical organisations/criminals who target anyone for fraud, harassment, stalking and sometimes worse offences.
- A picture of a model female or male is created with false information about the person. This fake profile then targets people of interest to be their friend. Then all of your updates, comments, photos and any conversation you may have are then used to learn about you.
- These fake profiles may ask you leading questions to garnish information.
- If you do not accept friends from someone you know, then organisations and criminals will target your friends so they can access your information.
- Searching photos that may have been tagged of you.
To avoid the above
- Do not accept invitations from strangers or even old friends whom you do not particularly want to get back in contact with again.
- Restrict how much personal information you write about yourself. Even adding your relationship status to your profile could cause trouble with criminals.
- Regularly search for tagged photos of yourself and remove an tags that you think need to be removed.
- Google yourself or set up a Google Alert on your name.
- Use the Privacy options available and create user groups so that certain people can see certain things. An example a group for your friends and a group for work colleagues may have access to different information.
- Follow our simple rule “If your Mum, Grandmother or boss would have any issue with anything on your profile then you should not have it on the Web”.
If in doubt hire an expert such as Net Mania
