Travel Tip: What Not to Post on Social Media
Thanks to Family Vacation Critic for a list of what not to post on social media to keep your family safe when traveling:
Geotagged Photos: Geotags are fun to use, but criminals can use them to pinpoint where you are and target you and/or your belongings. To avoid sharing this information, there are two steps you can take:
- Simply wait until you return home to post images from your vacation.
- Turn off geotagging on your camera. If using a smartphone camera, you can go into the location services under “Settings” and turn it off for the camera. If using a regular digital camera, check the manual for your model to find out how to disable geotagging. It’s also a good idea to disable location services for social media networks.
Personal Identification: You would be amazed at the number of people who post images of their official identification without blocking out any of their personal information.
Boarding Passes and Attraction Tickets: If you post an image of your entire boarding pass, you’re providing tons of information to criminals. Plus, the dates announce exactly when you’ll be away from home. The same goes for attraction and show tickets — any image of a ticket with a bar code can be scanned for your personal information.
Hotel Room Numbers: A surprising number of vacationers will snap an image of their hotel room door with the number on full display. Couple that with photos displaying where you’re staying, and you’ve provided criminals with directions to you and all of your stuff.
Naked Babies or Toddlers: They look so cute in the bathtub or running through the hotel room, but posting photos of naked babies and toddlers on social media is never a good idea. Some social media networks may see them as a violation of their terms of service and block the images — or your account — from the network. In a worst-case scenario, these images are providing content for child predators.
Clothing With Your Children’s School Names: Children love to show their school spirit, but posting vacation photos of your children wearing clothes espousing their schools provides child predators with the information they need to track down your children.