Ways that can be used to identify you Through Social Media

Social media is a place now for almost everybody. With several social media platforms, one can’t surely miss a platform to update their activities.

Anything you post online can be seen by almost anyone, especially those who want to follow you closely.

So, did you know that there are several ways that one can use to identify you through your social media platforms?

Perhaps, you didn’t know!

It’s not a secret anymore that technology has changed how the world operates. It has made communication easier and greatly influenced several aspects of life, such as the dating field, streaming, sharing, education, and more.

Unfortunately, here are some of the ways that one can use to identify you through your social media activities;

Image Metadata

They usually say that images can speak, and rightly so, they do!

But you just posted your favorite photo of the day in front of that famous restaurant in town? How can it speak?

Here’s the thing, most cameras and smartphones usually collect metadata when you take your picture. The type of data collected can include things like; the time the photo was taken, your camera information, and other important information (like your GPS coordinates).

Some social media platforms can help you and remove such metadata from your image before being made public, but still will store that information. That’s the good news – the bad news; some other platforms will not do the job for you but instead will make your image public with the metadata.

What do you think will happen if someone wanted to trace you down?

You’ll only get someone in front of your doorstep, and you won’t have any idea how they got there.

Fortunately, you can remove such metadata from your images yourself to prevent such unwanted followers. Unfortunately, some metadata can be close to impossible to get rid of.

Think of your favorite image in front of the famous restaurant in town? You can get rid of that, and therefore, once you post it, someone will surely know that you’re in town.

Perhaps, to be safe, you might consider posting such pictures with hard-to-remove metadata once you’re out of town.

Your Language and Writing Style

Your writing style and language can tell your identity. Sometimes, it can be challenging to blog anonymously. As a result, in most cases, you’ll have to change your language as well as the style to come up with unique content.

Different people indeed have those words that they usually use often. You have yours, right?

Unfortunately, stylometry as a science can help one to find out exactly who wrote what. In fact, with a more casual writing style, it becomes easier to find the author of any anonymous content.

So, what can you do?

Perhaps you can use computers that can help analyze essays, blog posts, or work emails automatically and then correlate them with your social media platform.

QR Codes

There’s no denying that there’s that urge to want to let the world know that you’re about to hit the road for a vacation. Most individuals will want to let their followers know about every step they take and can be displaying those flight or movie tickets.

Now, it’s not bad to enjoy your trips, but letting out your belongings that have a QR code on them is a risky affair.

Most QR codes might have embedded information on them that can sell you out. For instance, they might contain your real name or even your loyalty card number.

Imagine your name and loyalty card number in the hands of a criminal? Perhaps, you don’t want to imagine, do you?

In a few, you might get your flight changed or even canceled. They can get those movie tickets for themselves, and making it worse, they can get your loyalty card emptied.

Your IP Address

An IP address is one of the routes that most prying eyes use to steal personal information from internet users. Ideally, each site you visit online will see your IP address. Your public IP address contains important information about you, such as your location.

Therefore, if someone wants to look for you, it means that your IP address will undoubtedly betray you. They can easily approximate your location by simply tricking you into visiting a site they’ll use to obtain your IP address.

Unfortunately, in some countries such as the US, your information can be easily sold to whoever asks them from your ISP.

You don’t have to worry, though, as you can hide your IP address using the best VPN service, such as Expressvpn.

Nevertheless, it’s very easy for someone to use your social media platforms to quickly tell your identity. Fortunately, some ways are preventable personally; you only need to be proactive and not careless. Literally, you need to think twice before posting anything on your social media; otherwise, you might find yourself in trouble.

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