I signed up to the phone, mail and fax registers to stop being bombarded with unsolicited communication; aka junk mail/calls*. I am particularly careful to opt out of any direct mail, and have informed my bank, theatres etc that I do not want to receive carefully selected offers from them or their partners. To protect my pc, I use a logon and password that is updated regularly, have a firewall and anti virus software.

Recently I’ve joined skype.com, MySpace.com and linkedin.com, amongst others. Skype to talk free to my family overseas, myspace to find out what it’s all about, and Linkedin to keep in touch with ex-colleagues and for business opportunities. In the spirit of joining at registration I created and now continue to update my profile. Although social networking is all about making new friends too, that’s not my reason for joining in the online phenomenon. The motivation is so that old friends can get in touch and the more personal my declared attributes the easier it is for them to recognise me – or so I hope. I’ve put my life history online for anyone anywhere in the world to see. I’ve put photographs there too.

What a contradiction. After protecting my privacy I’ve now put all this particularly personal information on line. MySpace even prompts for race, weight and height! Banks often ask for date of birth, mothers maiden name, or place of birth as extra security.

Next time you add this type of sensitive information into your profile - think again.

With the increase in identity fraud are we making ‘their’ jobs easier?

Mindlab.org say’s the rise of the social networking phenomenon is partly the result that people enjoy being nosey and enjoy the hours scrolling through random profiles on line. It is perfectly acceptable to ‘pimp’ yourself online. It is perfectly acceptable on friend (rather than business) based sites to put any image you want online and details that need not reflect reality. The negative aspects of information and interaction online are widely discussed; ‘stranger danger’, protecting minors, adult material, spamming, and violation of copyright.

So my questions today are:
• When will nosiness turn malicious?
• When is it no longer acceptable to not tell the truth on line?

*Did you know that you can also specifically stop getting baby focused mail too? Register here http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/bmpsr/ or don’t fill out the Bounty form that comes in the goodie bag from the hospital when you next leave with a new born babe.

Added 16th October; here is an interesting article re identity theft from the bbc site. Also these are informative links: 4th October 2006 article at theregister