Why Your MySpace or Facebook Profile Might Get Your Identity Stolen

Social networking sites have become all the rage for people in their teens and twenties in the last few years. They have become so popular that most high-schools have blocked the sites, and many colleges with laptop programs are reporting problems that students aren't paying attention in the classroom and are instead looking at what the Facebook News Feed has to say for the day. All of this access to information about what your friends isn't all fun and games, and it may in fact lead to your identity being stolen.

If you have an account on one of these sites, go ahead and look at your profile. If you filled out each one of the fields, people would know your full name, your address, your birth-date, your employer information, your hometown, your phone number, your email addresses and a lot of other personal information that you wouldn't want just anyone to know about you, let alone acquire easily just by visiting your profile page.

The problem has gotten so bad that nearly 50% of Facebook users are displaying enough information to steal their identity. There are many inherent risks using new social networking technologies, most of which young people simply do not realize. If you are a parent of someone in their teens, you should definitely view your child's social networking site profiles and make sure they are not revealing too much personal information. If you are someone with an account on MySpace or Facebook, you should definitely minimize the amount of information that you put on these sites.

What's okay to put on these sites and what's not? A good rule of thumb is that if you needed that piece of information to open a bank account, it's probably not a good idea to put it on your Facebook profile. Putting on your name is fine, but you definitely want to leave things off such as your phone number(s), your birth-year, your home-town, and your street address. It's fine to list all of your favorite bands and activities, but leave off any information that would allow people to contact you directly or any information that you wouldn't want a complete strange to have about you.

Fortunately thus far, identity thieves have not been harvesting information from MySpace and Facebook to steal individual's identities on a large scale, but it's always a good idea to manage what information you put out about yourself on the internet.