This week saw the launch of Facebook Places in the UK.
Facebook Places is a feature on the Facebook social network, enabling users to add their exact location to a status update.
It was launched last month in the US and follows the growing popularity of various other ‘location based’ social networking tools. Many people are now sharing their precise current location with others through online tools such as Twitter, FourSquare and Gowalla.
Whilst these tools and features have some useful applications, it is important to be aware of the dangers they pose as well.
If you use these social networks to reveal your home location and, more importantly, when you are away from home, you could be inviting burglars to take advantage.
In some cases, this could potentially see your claims under a contents insurance policy being rejected, because you had widely advertised that your home was vacant.
There is no evidence that burglars have started to use location-based social networking to target empty properties, yet. I suspect that in the near future, we will start to see insurance providers checking your ‘footprint’ across online social networks when handling claims.
Photo courtesy of mcoughlin.
