To Prevent Burglary, Councilman James Oddo Urges Would-Be Vacationers Not To Post Information On Facebook

Councilman James Oddo and several other officials hosted an event to offer some tech-savvy advice for residents planning vacations. Specifically, they told residents not to post about upcoming vacations on any social networking sites.

Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan, Councilmen James Oddo and Vincent Ignizio spoke to a group of people to help answer tech questions related to home security.

“Don’t help criminals by posting on Facebook or other ways of letting criminals know that you’re going to be away,” said Ignizio, according to SILive.com.

He said that he often uses social networking sites, but he is careful about what information he releases.

Although it may be tempting to write about that Caribbean getaway, with the popularity of social networks and internet information sharing, it seems that burglars have begun to use Facebook and other social networking websites to stake out empty homes.

Oddo and the rest of the officials also urged residents on vacations not to post photos until they return, since posting while are still on vacation may lure criminals.

It’s sound advice since censoring location updates is not often practiced in today’s personal information hungry world. With applications like foursquare encouraging location updates with pseudo-prizes, it’s harder to distinguish between the right about and too much information.