An article relating to this blog post on Finextra:
Social media users warned of insurance hikes
People who use social media tools that can reveal their location, such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz, could face hikes in home insurance premiums, according to price comparison site Confus...
See article
Yes, our data show a correlation between some higher users of social media and identity fraud, yet this story screams of media sensationalism to me. There are just too many variables at play, such as the presence of multiple residents in many homes that
are waiting to thwart the would-be burglar. Certainly it's foolish to share too much on social media sites, and this includes all that information commonly used by companies to return lost passwords, such as your mother's maiden name or that of your favorite
pet. We conduct a survey of 5,000 US adults each year to find correlations between risk profile and actual fraud, and there *are* behaviors that lead to higher risk. We need consumers to stop the sharing of data via both high and low-tech methods, and we also
need greater use of the latest monitoring capabilities for existing and new account fraud. Bank alerting systems aren't completely up to the task just yet, but they are evolving quickly.
Having said all that, anything that makes consumers more vigilant about Prevention, Detection and Resolution(TM) of identity fraud is a good thing!