Does Anyone Really Have Privacy?

Lately it seems to be in the headlines and on many peoples mind, privacy. The issue is that people feel like they are being invaded everywhere they turn…. REALLY? Do you believe that in the last 5 years or so that your life is private? If so, please destroy your cell phone, cancel your Facebook and Twitter, Instigram, unplug your computer and throw it in the trash, close your blinds and never leave your house.

I hate to break the news to you but the biggest offenders of violating your privacy is YOU! We put our lives out there for everyone to see on social media, in email and when we shop. We are on camera, on record and out there for all to see. I started a company just to help some friends out keep tabs on what their kids were doing online. I stopped doing it because it was too easy to find out everything about the people they wanted me to check up on. If you have very little skills, you can go into peoples digital footprint and find out enough about them to be all up in their lives.

On a drive to Austin back in 2005, me and a friend were discussing this very topic when he asked, “just how easy is it”? I told him to pick the next car that drove by and we would find out about that person. So the next car came by he jotted down the license plate number and our search began. This happened quick enough that we only pulled off on the shoulder and did not even have to exit the highway. I started to work with the license plate number. There are many public services that you can purchase (for little money) to run license plates. Once I ran the plate I had the name of the vehicle owner. With that I was able to search drivers at that address and find all registered drivers at that location, by process of elimination (age of the person we saw in the vehicle) we narrowed it to the driver. Then we went to Facebook and did a search of that person. She happened to be the second person down on the list of people with that name. We knew this because on the back of the vehicle was a Texas Longhorns sticker and on the Facebook profile of the person we were looking for, this one was a student to UT Austin. We sent a friend request from my friends Facebook and in about 10 minutes, she confirmed him as a friend and we had all of her information from class schedule, cell phone number, friends, hang-outs and lots of other information on this total staranger and she had let us in. He quickly unfriended her and we drove off pretty pleased with the results of our test.

I have told you the above story to prove a point, YOU are responsible for your safety and privacy and it is only you that can handle the privacy of your life. I will provide you a few tips;

~ Don’t post photos where you are standing in front or in back of a vehicle where it shows the license plate.

~ Don’t post photos of school schedules, practice schedules or check in at any of those places.

~ Don’t brag about where you live or post a photo that shows the street address or an obvious landmark that would be easy to find.

~ Don’t post your phone number on Facebook without putting it on private. This one is very important because you would be amazed at how many people you could text and say you were one of that persons friends and you just got a new phone number and wanted to meet up and they would do it.

~ Don’t make posts about going on vacation, wait until you come back home to post photos. Also don’s ever post about being home alone.

~ Do make your Facebook and other social media posts private.

If you get nothing else from this post, just be safe and be aware of what you are doing to put yourself out there for others to see. There are too many people that are looking for opportunities to harm others for you to leave it all out for everyone. Just be smart and be safe.