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How You Lead Burglars to Your Home

By Morgan Saylor

Julie Ryan Evans writes for realtor.com on habits most people have, that lead burglars to their home. Social media apps have gotten savvier, and so have burglars.

Simple things, like sharing an expensive Christmas gift you’ve been given, or posted pictures live from your vacation – hundreds of miles away from your home – allow burglars insights into your life that you don’t want them to have. According to Evans’ article, a recent study found that nearly 80% of burglars use social media to plan burglaries.

Here are some behaviors you may not be aware you’re doing, but criminals are honing in on, and these behaviors can lead them straight into your home.

Location Posts & How to Deal – When you create a post, your social media site will ask you if you want to share your location. So if you post from home and agree to share your location, now everyone knows where you live. Create privacy settings so that your posts can only be seen by friends, but not the public. It’s advisable to go a step further and disable location services for social media, and to not tag locations. Also: absolutely do not post vacation pictures or statuses while you’re away.

Advertising Bling & How to Deal – Regardless of whether you do not disclose your location, photos taken with an iPhone that are posted to a website may automatically contain geotags with your GPS coordinates, according to Evans. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter strip this information from the pictures, but others don’t. Anyone can use a picture you’ve shared of your brand new bling and find where you’ve stashed it. The solution? Just avoid posting pictures of valuables online, or disable your phone from adding GPS location to pics.

Overshare & How to Deal – Adding personal information, like your hometown, birthday, and personal information may seem like a fun way to meet like-minded, like-aged people, but it’s also a great way to give criminals personal information about yourself

Source: http://www.realtor.com/advice/home-improvement/social-media-leading-burglars-to-your-home/?iid=rdc_news_hp_carousel_theLatest

Tags: Home, safety, social, social media, internet, media, burglar