5 Privacy Tips When Sharing Info on Social Media

We all love social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However, in this business I’ve also seen many innocent people be attacked through these social networks as well. In today’s world so many people are literally sharing their ENTIRE lives online and this is opening up a gateway for others to get into their lives and attack. Please follow these five important social network safety tips to protect yourself:

1. Limit Sharing

I’ve seen some people actually set their Facebook sharing settings to “Public” – I never did understand this. For myself, I actually limit to a select few only (usually family members that live away). When you set your sharing limits to “Public”, this literally gives ANYONE with an internet connection the option of viewing your posts, pictures, statuses, etc.

2. Be Weary Logging in Through Public Computers.

When you log into your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn from a public computer, you are leaving your username and password begin on that computer. It really doesn’t matter if it’s establish business your at (such as a coffee shop, internet café, public library, etc.) – if the next person who uses that computer knows what they’re doing, they will be able to get your information and have access to your entire personal life online.

3. Never Show Your Full Birthday

This is a safety point that most people find hard to take seriously. However, when you reveal your full birth date (day, month, and year), this is sometimes the only information someone needs to get other information. It’s fine if you want to state your birthday and month, but withhold the year for your protection.

4. Ensure You Get Account Activity Alerts

Facebook offers an option in Account Settings where every time you log into your Facebook account from a new device (laptop, computer, mobile phone, etc.) it will send an alert to ensure it WAS actually you logging in. This is very good information to have because anytime someone who isn’t you logs into your account, you will get a notification, which will prompt you to change your password and avoid any further privacy attacks.

5. Limit What Your Friends Can Share

This is an option that most people don’t even consider or know about. But when you are tagged in a status update, photo, etc. with others, those others can share that item and if they have their privacy settings set to “Public”, then that gets blasted out onto the internet. To adjust these settings, go to “Privacy Settings”, then go to “Apps, Games, and Websites”, then adjust each setting to your preferences

Jennings Smith Investigations Inc. provides a complete range of private investigator, security and forensic services to clients throughout Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, nationally and internationally. Based in Hartford, CT, Jennings Smith offers Private Investigator Connecticut services with affiliate offices in every major city in the US and Canada, as well as South and Central America, Europe and Asia.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this article and stay tuned for more internet safety blog posts!

3 Tips for Family Cyber Safety

With all the Internet scams, security issues, and cyber attacks that occur these days, every parent is doing everything in their power to protect their little ones from cyber space. You can limit pages, monitor their searching, and block websites, but sometimes even that doesn’t cut it. Here are three more safety tips for parents dealing the cyber safety:

1. Set an Age Limit and Stick to It

We see kids as young as 7 years old creating their own Facebook profiles pages – this is very unnecessary. At that young age, kids don’t realize that what they do online will be there forever. So it’s the parents’ job to step in and set a limit. A good age to allow your child to create a Facebook profile is 14 years of age. Some parents even say that this age is too young, but if you restrict them too much, it could backlash. So age 14 is a decent age, and you can still monitor what they do.

2. Cut Off Time

Many parents don’t know this, but you can actually set it up so that your Internet literally turns off at a certain time each night and doesn’t turn back on until the morning. Private Investigator Connecticut is a great tool and if you aren’t familiar on how to use it, contact your Internet provider and they can probably walk you through the process. Studies have actually shown that later hours of night is when many kids “sneak” online without their parents knowing, so by creating a cut off time, this restricts them. Also, make sure there are no neighbor networks that your kids can connect to once your Internet is turned off.

3. Talk With Your Kids

Sometimes using case studies to show your kids how dangerous the internet can be is great. For example, showing your teenage daughter some case studies of other teenagers who posted inappropriate pictures online and the consequences they had to face because of it can be enough to show them what they should be doing and what they should not do. Some people think Private Investigator Connecticut is over the top, but I’ve seen it work in so many situations that I’m a firm believer in it. The fact is that it’s the truth – our kids can make mistakes online sometimes and they don’t know what they are getting into because they don’t know what consequences they’ll face – by showing them real life case studies, it gives them a taste of how realistic the internet can be.

Hopefully these tips have helped you and if you have some tips that you’d like you to share with other parents, please feel free to post!

The Last straw….Time to get real about Background Investigations

The Arrest of two teachers for Lewd conduct at the Miramonte Elementary School should serve as a national wakeup call for all School Districts to require Comprehensive Background Investigations conducted by qualified Private Investigators of School administrators, teachers and youth serving professionals.

While Superintendents and Public Officials state that they conduct “Background Checks” of educators and staff, the truth is those “Checks” only focus on past criminal record searches of the subject prior to his/her hiring. Once the initial criminal records searches are conducted, few school districts conduct subsequent or follow up inquires of those repositories to determine if the subject has been arrested for any crime involving minors or crimes of ‘moral turpitude’.

Many of these districts continue to vet their applicants by only checking their applicant’s academic records and previous work history.

Clearly, these practices have to change, especially in view of increased awareness and public anger over the ever-rising number of cases of sexual assaults both in and out of school by employees of school districts.

Our children are and will be at serious risk unless something is done to protect them now. This is not the time to get corporate about this issue. Not the time to convene seminars, meetings, symposiums or assemblies. Action is needed, not words. No more apologies or lame excuses for failing to provide safeguards or programs to weed out sexual predators who pose as youth serving professionals.

While you may think that use of Licensed Private Investigator Connecticut to conduct pre- employment background investigations of school personnel is a bit heavy handed, there are several key reasons to do so:

The arrest of teachers at the Miramonte Elementary School is not an anomaly as most educational institutions would purport but rather a endemic of national proportion. In Connecticut, for example a jury recently convicted a teacher for having sexual relations with a student.

Jennings Smith Investigations, Inc. provides a complete range of Private Investigator Connecticutsecurity and forensic services to clients, New York and New Jersey, nationally and internationally. Based in Hartford, CT, Jennings Smith offers private investigator services with affiliate offices in every major city in the US and Canada, as well as South and Central America, Europe and Asia.