Look, I know that this pandemic has been a long and depressing job, and even though you have masked yourself, made the social distance and managed to be free of the virus, we are all well and exhausted at this point. So it is understandable that, now that we have vaccines available, everyone is impatient to get one.
But when you finally get the jab, resist the urge to post humble bluster on Instagram or any other social media platform, because identity thieves may be watching. And you don’t want to be the newly vaccinated person whose selfie provides scammers with a model to make false vaccination registration cards (because if you think it’s not happening anymore, you’re wrong).
“Some of you are celebrating your second COVID-19 vaccination with the dizzying enthusiasm that is usually reserved for weddings, babies and other life events,” wrote the Federal Trade Commission in a blog on Friday. “You are posting a photo of your vaccination card on social media. Please do not do that! You may be inviting identity theft. “
The card not only contains the name of the person vaccinated and the date of birth, but also includes when and where you got the vaccine. Unless all of your social media accounts are set up as private, you are distributing a lot of free data about yourself that you may not want people on the Internet to know about.
The New York Times I talked to some privacy experts who said that a crafty scammer could pretend to be a health officer to trick people who received the first dose of the vaccine and make them think they need to pay for the second dose and get their credit card information. victims. And someone can use the photo on their vaccination card to recreate the cards and possibly sell counterfeit versions – something that is apparently already happening in the UK.
As part of the Vaccine with Confidence campaign, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has a plan for states to distribute stickers to newly vaccinated people, an excellent visual to share on social media instead of the vaccination card.
So, if you have been vaccinated against coronavirus, accept my congratulations! We are all happy for you. But we don’t need to see your vital information in all of our social feeds.