Is Facebook Identity Theft Possible?Is it possible to do some sort of Facebook identity theft and what benefit might a criminal get from using the site? As social networking sites become more and more popular, the amount of information displayed about an individual online increases. However, as you may know, MySpace and Facebook differ significantly. MySpace seems to be used on a more professional basis by those in the entertainment industry. People, bands or DJs that have their own show, song or gig to promote seem to be everywhere in MySpace. For some, it seems to be a very low cost but high return way to build a buzz around them. Facebook is different though. Since it is not possible - at least yet - to 'Pimp My Profile' and add music, videos and other images, the entertainment industry seems to not be getting involved. Instead, the experience of your author shows that Facebook is instead being used by an ever expanding group of young, upwardly mobile professionals. These are the types with office based careers who would probably not want to be seen to be too wild to the outside world. Since the site appears to have a different type of user, the information displayed is also different. For example, many people happily display their date of birth and details about their educational and employment backgrounds. This is because the site seems to be some sort of quasi dating site with the potential for job hunting thrown in. These details can only be viewed by your connections, but that still could open the way for the potential of identity theft. Being a member of a geographical 'network' also puts users at additional risk. Other members of the same network are able to view some personal profile details of others that they are not otherwise linked to. This may not sound too risky, but in big cities, this opens a profile up to a LOT of people. The London network - for example - is at the time of writing the largest in the world with well over 1 million people. Why give all these random and unknown people access to your information? (This level of access has since changed). As is discussed elsewhere on this site, for an identity thief to begin their work, they need very few pieces of information. Once they have found out a person's full name, date of birth, address, telephone number and social security number, there are many low level crimes that can be committed. Store cards can potentially be applied for or other basic identification documents can be applied for. By displaying a number of these details online, an individual opens themselves to potential problems. When combined with a little background information which can be found on the site (place of study, hometown, type of job and employer) the task of impersonating a victim becomes much easier. It is possible to switch off a number of features by using the site's privacy settings and this is a good thing to do. Of course, much better would be to put less information in a profile... The introduction of Beacon by Facebook in 2008 altered the way in which personal information was gathered by the company. However, a semi-revolt by users forced the company to change approach and improve the potential privacy functions considerably. As such, it is now possible to limit the amount that each 'friend' can see and whether your profile appears in search engine listings. Every user should be using these functions. If you would like to keep updated about the latest changes in Facebook and it's policies, there is a Facebook site governance page. This page is used to gauge the thoughts of users to planned changes. Update - November 2009: Facebook will start using your photos in ads that will appear on the profile page of your contacts. It is legal and is mentioned in the fine print when you create your account. If you want to prevent this, do the following: Settings, Privacy Settings, News Feed and Wall. Then click the Facebook Ads tab, choose "No one" and save changes. The moral to this story, is that we should all be careful what personal information is displayed about us online. Otherwise, we may inadvertantly enable Facebook identity theft to be possible. If all this fails to convince you that there are potential risks online to using social media websites, this story about a young man in Wisconsin that used Facebook for blackmailing his fellow students at school ought to provide pause for thought... Update - December 2009: A survey by IT security firm Sophos looks at the use of Facebook and how much information is available. The results of this study are pretty scary from the standpoints of personal privacy and identity theft prevention. Update - February 2010: Some research published shows just how many Human Resources professionals and recruiters use social networking sites to research candidates before they make a decision to hire or not. Knowing that 41% in the UK and around 70% in the US - amongst others - use such tactics ought to provide pause for further thought before "that" photo is posted and tagged... An agency of the European Union, ENISA, has published this paper containing recommendations for online safety measures for consumers. If you have any concerns - and we all ought to have - we recommend that you read the position paper. Also in February 2010 was Safer Internet Day organised by the European Commission to highlight the risks people - and specifically as a part of this campaign, children - take when posting personal details and information on social networking websites. As if to highlight the potential problems that can be caused by a social network, this story by the BBC about Google Buzz - which was launched in February 2010 - shows the possible risks. To read more about related subjects, please follow these links:
Do You Have A Story About This?Have you had experience of identity theft or some other form of personal information problem while using Facebook or other Web 2.0 properties? Please share it with us so that we can all learn. What Other Visitors Have SaidClick below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
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