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Thanks to the article from Consumers Report for the stats. It's something that parents should have some kind of game plan when it come to having the kids on Social Media. If you have some comments, we would love to hear from you.

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Facebook & your kid’s security from Consumers Report

Over the past couple of months, I have had some parents recently ask me recently about “How safe is Facebook?” Great question, which I figured should get a great answer.  I recently read the latest survey from Consumers Report May issue about the current state of personal security on Facebook towards minors, which was part of Facebook’s changes to their terms of services in June/ 2010. Here’s some numbers which is shared in the survey, which might come as a shocking surprise to some of you:

20 million minors are actively used Facebook in the past year

 7.5 million of them were younger than 13

Facebook’s terms of service require users to be at least 13 years old

Among the group of minors using Facebook, more than 5 million were under age10

Most accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents, exposing them to malware or serious threats such as predators or bullies

Using Facebook can present children and their friends and family with safety, security and privacy risks. In the past year, the use of Facebook has exposed more than five million online U.S. households to some type of abuse including virus infections, identity theft, and—for a million children—bullying, according to the survey.

“Despite Facebook’s age requirements, many kids are using the site who shouldn’t be,” says Jeff Fox, Technology Editor for Consumer Reports. “What’s even more troubling was the finding from our survey that indicated that a majority of parents of kids from the age of 10 and under seemed largely unconcerned by their children’s use of the site.”

Social media is another way for consumers to expose themselves and make themselves vulnerable to becoming a victim of identity theft or having to replace their computer. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports:

surveyed 2,089 online households across the US 

one-third had experienced a malicious software infection in the previous year

estimates that malware cost consumers $2.3 billion US last year

forced people to replace 1.3 million PCS in US.

This does not mean you should stop using social media, it means that consumers need to do more on their part to protect their information. So here are some tips on being socially safe for you & your family:

 Monitor a child’s account.

Parents should join their children’s circle of friends on Facebook. If that’s not feasible with an older teenager, keep tabs on them through their friends or siblings, as did 18 percent of parents surveyed who had 13- to 17-year olds on Facebook. Parents should delete a pre-teen’s account or ask Facebook to do so by using its “reports an underage child” form.

Utilize privacy controls.

Roughly one in five active adult Facebook users said they hadn’t utilized Facebook’s privacy controls, making them more vulnerable to threats. Facebook’s privacy controls may not prevent every breach but they help. Users should set everything they can to be accessible only to those on their friends list. Enabling a public search allows users’ profile picture, friends list, activities and more to be visible online outside of Facebook.

Turn off Instant Personalization.

Facebook has been adding sites to its Instant Personalization feature, which automatically links accounts to user-review sites such as TripAdvisor (travel) and Yelp (local businesses). Users who don’t wish to share what cities they have visited with their Facebook friends via TripAdvisor should disable Instant Personalization, which is turned on by default.

Use apps with caution.

Even though Facebook says in its privacy policy that it doesn’t share identifiable information with advertisers without permission, connecting with an app or website allows access to general information. Users should check the list of apps they are using and define the settings for each one listed. Decide what information the app can access, when possible, or perhaps eliminate the app altogether. Also, users should limit access to their information that is available to apps that friends use.

Use common sense.

Teach & remind your children that Social Media can be a great tool to connect with other friends and family but not to put information or images that you don’t want people to see up for the world to see.

Additional findings from Consumer Reports latest State of the Net are featured in the June issue of Consumer Reports magazine available on newsstands on May 10th or online at www.ConsumerReports.org.

If you have tips that have worked to protecting you & your family please let us know by adding your comments to this article on here or our Facebook page.

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