Did you wish that you did not publish your home address online? Or was there an instance when out of nothing you have given out your home address? This happens especially with Facebook or Twitter users. Now it is time to clean up your profile information and trim it down only to the most essentials. This might be a rule to follow: keep private data to yourself only, or at least be careful with data sharing next time.
Users cannot be blamed when they share their home address that easily. With friends, what is there in a home address that would cause trouble? Well, maybe not with friends. But if the whole of the internet community could access this information, maybe you are up to some trouble. It is privacy that comes into the picture, and what comes next is unexpected.
Facebook was discovered that it shows its users’ home address to developers. In a post written by Jeff Bowen, he outlined how Facebook would make these data available in the development platform. In addition, users’ mobile phone numbers are available too.
Rogue app developers can make use of these data for their own purpose. With just a little amount of manipulation, rogue app developers can use these data to spread their malicious business. Two of the most common of these are spam and cold-calling. So you see how simple it is, but the results could be annoying.
There is a need to be more extra careful. When being required to supply your home address, do not just give in. Find out some more. Is it legitimate? Is it valid? Only then should you decide if you are going to share your vital information.
Cluley proposes one solution to this problem. There should be stricter policies on Facebook’s access terms. The following could be done. Before giving access to data, the identity of the user should be established. If they are valid, then that is the only time when they can access those. Another modification would be to require developers to ask users’ approval before using their data.
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