Anyone who has logged onto Twitter has seen the countless B-list celebrities and bloggers hyping their latest work using the social media machine. What you probably didn’t know is that sharing vacation or travel plans on Twitter could make you the target of a home invasion.

Millions of people around the world tweet about their daily lives, hoping to connect with others by sharing information about themselves. Some share news about their business, personal life and even trips or vacations through Twitter.

One Mesa, Ariz. couple learned that sharing too much information with their 2,000 so-called friends on Twitter may have made them a target for burglars. After sharing the play-by-play of their road trip to Kansas City, Israel Hyman and his wife were robbed during their stay.

Now it’s possible that the Hymans were targeted by the burglars because of newspapers stacking up on the front lawn or the piles of mail in their mailbox, but Israel doesn’t believe it. He notes that the burglars only stole the high-end video editing equipment for his business that he promotes online.

Once a thief ties your Twitter identity back to your real name, it’s trivial to get directions to anyone’s home that is listed in the phonebook. For many entrepreneurs such as Israel Hyman, their home is registered as their business address, making the task of tracking them down even easier.

For many people in the digital age, sharing their lives and identities online is a matter of course. Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are increasingly how people keep up with friends, family and business associates.

However it’s easy to forget how our actions in the virtual world can have a lasting impact on our daily lives. It’s important to safeguard private information while online to limit the chances that someone could use it for nefarious purposes.

As a culture, we’re still learning how to incorporate these new technologies into our day-to-day routines. As we do so, it may be prudent to keep truly personal details about our lives and whereabouts to actual, real-life friends.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 10:02 am under Crime, Security, Social Media.

Read more entries by Dave Jeyes.
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