In the movies using the magic words Home Alone, a large family finds various excuses to leave their home. Except, of course, they manage to leave the younger, more troublesome one behind. The plots then variously find humor in every home owner’s nightmare, i.e. that while they are away on a beach, in Paris or carving the Thanksgiving turkey on the other side of the country, burglars will see their home empty and break in at their leisure. Indeed, one of the new sources of paranoia are these wonderful pieces of technology allowing you to tweet or make other bird noises telling everyone where you are, what you are buying or eating, and so on. “Friends” who follow your instant messages may therefore know when you are away from home and how long they have to break in. Why should they want to break in? Because you tell them where you shop, what you buy, which upmarket restaurants you like to eat in and how expensive the wine you drink. You are advertising your lifestyle and telling potential thieves whether you are worth robbing.
So how does the insurance industry react to all this? Well, they’re not their usual happy smiling selves. They hate the idea you’re broadcasting who you are and when you are away from your home. Google is not their pin-up site of the month because it now publishes photographs of people’s homes. Potential thieves can therefore see whether there are bushes in front of the windows to hide a forced entry or how easy it is to access the rear of the property. Better still are all these blogs where people recklessly publish photographs taken inside the home. This allows thieves to plan exactly how much transport to bring to drive away all the more valuable things you own. (more…)