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Whether your social media preference is Instagram or Facebook, it’s all too easy to share your location on these platforms, especially when you post photos and videos. You might think telling everyone about the fantastic gallery you’ve discovered or the outdoor restaurant to love is helpful content), but it comes with a risk. Sharing your location on social media can also be problematic. Privacy Expert Pieter Vaniperen, a managing partner at PMV Consultants, spoke to SHEFinds.com. about the real reason you should never share your location on social media.
First and foremost, sharing your location on social media could be a safety issue, according to Vaniperen. “When you let everyone know where you are and what you are doing, people with bad motives know exactly where to find you. On top of that, when you share your location on social media, you are opening your device up to bad actors. If someone is looking for a way to hack you, proximity is always going to make that easier.”
This holds true particularly if the location you are visiting has a public WiFi network that your device is connected to, Vaniperen says. “Anyone on that network who knows what they are doing can access the other devices on the same network,” he says. “They can then plant malware or other malicious packages onto your device to steal your information. This isn’t just about who you know personally, even if you’re a great person and you’ve never gotten on anyone’s bad side, if you’re a business executive at any company, you could be a target. Or if you work for a specific company that a bad actor is targeting, it doesn’t matter what your position is, if they can get to the business by getting to you, then that’s what they are going to do.”
Another aspect of sharing your location to consider is that it also tells people where you aren’t at the time you post. “Maybe you are on vacation for a month and your house is left empty,” Vaniperen says. “Likewise, so is your desk at work. If someone wants to impersonate you virtually, use your address to perform a drop ship scheme, break into your home, or claim to be the computer repair upgrade guy at your work desk, this is the perfect time. Frankly, it's not even recommended to put where you are or when you'll be returning on an Out of Office reply.”
And there is even more reason to be careful about listing your location on any social media platform: hackers can use that location to specifically target you by targeting your habits to social engineer scenarios to elicit information directly from you, according to Vaniperen.
“If I can figure out your daily routine, there are a lot more ways that I can begin to set up high stress situations, where you are more likely to give me information I need,” he says. “Or leverage places your use regularly to impersonate someone.”
The good news is that social media sites will give you the option to share your location or not. “Whether or not you choose to share it should not impact your ability to use the website. If sharing your location is a requirement and you don’t feel comfortable with that, then don’t use the website,” Vaniperen says. “Erring on the side of caution will almost always yield a best-case scenario.”
