“All packed for weeklong trip, hopefully no flight delays tonight!”
You’ve seen – and perhaps published one yourself – similar social media posts letting the world (if the account isn’t private) know real-time about someone being away on holiday. In Swinton Insurance’s view, such disclosures could be inviting burglary… and new research in partnership with security experts Yale draws that link.
Swinton’s study examined how much UK netizens are sharing online when it comes to their holidays, new house or car, and being out of the home in general. The insurer said its analysis found 72,558 ‘risky’ social media posts, including 6,248 which provided details as to when the person would be away.
In terms of possibly theft-inducing holiday posts, according to Swinton, Manchester proved to be at highest risk.
“Manchester is by far the riskiest city in the UK, with Mancunians 155% more likely to ‘check in’ at the airport, or share a snap of their cocktail on the beach,” noted the insurance company. “This is a slight improvement on last year’s figure of 171%, but there’s clearly still some way to go.”
As for actual crime data, the same city topped the list in terms of burglary risk. Next to Manchester are Middlesborough and Leeds.
“Surprisingly, London doesn’t chart in the top 10 riskiest cities,” said Swinton. “London’s larger population size means that although almost 80,000 burglaries took place, the percentage of the residents that were broken into in the last 12 months is under 1% (0.89%), compared to 1.5% in Manchester.”
One tip from Yale, aside from setting social media accounts to private, is to delay posting. In a published guide it said: “Wait to tag, post photos, or update statuses until you return home to prevent being targeted.”
