The increase in popularity of social networks and location based check-in services, like FourSquare, in the past 3 or 4 years has led to a new form of crime. Burglars are now using social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to establish when a property is likely to be empty and use this information to plan their criminal activity.
The main lesson is that you should be careful about the information that you share and, if you are addicted to the likes of FourSquare, make sure that your home is secure.
The infographic below was taken from this article on the Mashable website. Although the figures relate to incidents in America, it is fair to say that this activity is being mirrored in the UK. If the text is too small on your screen, right-click and select ‘View image’.
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