Social Networking

Be Safe and Protect your Personal information

Social networking is all the rage and doesn’t seem to be declining. According to a recent “Consumer Report’s” study two out of three online households use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, twice as many as the previous year. Protect your family and personal information by following these precautions:

Use the Privacy Controls

You can limit access to what your friends, friends of friends, can see. Restrict access to photos, birth date, maiden name, and family information. Make sure you really know all your “friends”.

Birth Date

Do not use your full birth date and maiden name, two important pieces of information for an identity theft.

Passwords

Avoid simple words or names (mix up letters, numbers and symbols) Instead of putting numbers on the end of the word put it in the middle. Password should be updated every 4 Mos.

Posting Child’s name in caption or Photo Tag
Do not use child’s full name and remove photo tags.

Search Engines

prevent strangers from accessing your Facebook page. In Search section of Facebook’s privacy control select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Do not check public search box.

Kids on Facebook

The age limit to have an account on Facebook is 13. This can easily be circumvented. If your child is on Facebook become their friend. Use your email address for their contact info so you can monitor their notifications.

Status:

Avoid stating that you will be away from home, vacationing, babysitting, etc.

Google Alerts:

Monitor your child’s digital content by creating an alert on Google. Any time your child’s name appears in digital form you will receive an email alerting you that fact.

As always the best defense to keep your child safe is education and communication. Continue to discuss with your children about their digital usage: what sites they go to, how and who they are interacting with on XBOX,Wii, and other gaming devices. Remember to keep the internet devices in a common living space.