This isn’t actually a guide for thieves but it just shows how easy it could be for them.
Spring/Summer is traditionally the season with the most burglaries due to windows being left open and people jetting off on holiday etc, however, with the continued increase in social media usage thieves are looking for more novel ways to scope out an empty house.
Even in 2021, we still see people posting ‘Just arrived at the airport, ready for our holiday’ style statuses or photos of them on the beach etc on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and it can take someone a matter of minutes to find your home address using previous GPS photo data, location check-ins, previous photos and then finally electoral roll address searches (or similar).
Then they just have to look at your previous photos to find out who you live with, if they’re with you, what products you have that are worth stealing etc etc etc.
A quick scout on google street view, a walk past the house a few times and then boom they’re in the back door.
Lots of people think their home is too ordinary to get broken into, however, if someone knew all of the above about you then all of a sudden you become an easy target.
As an example we thought we would see how easy it was:
1) We searched on twitter for one of the obvious holiday statuses and found a status about just landing at JFK airport from a UK person
2) On twitter bio it states their hometown you see
3) Found the persons address on electoral website searcher, along with names of others who live at that address
4) Checked other photos to see he was with his family, so house should be empty
Total cost: £1.79 for the address search…and about 10-15 minutes but that cost and time would dramatically reduce if we knew what we were doing!
A prime example, yes it was only shared with ‘friends’ (120) but also friends of those tagged (365) and we all have at least one person on our friend list we don’t know that well + you never know who might have access to someones laptop whilst they’re away etc
Just think about it before you press ‘post’ on your next status, does the whole world need to see the photo, this instant? Can you not save the photos for when you arrive home?
Check the Police database to check your area > http://www.police.uk/
