UK households have been issued a warning about leaving home over Christmas.
Brits are preparing for winter getaways. Whether it’s to visit the in-laws for Boxing Day, spend New Year’s Eve in a foreign city or nip away to the Canary Islands, it’s important to be careful when sharing one thing.
Many people are posting carefree selfies away from home, which could set them up for a lot of distress, according to tech experts at AI SEO Agency IMSR.
A single overlooked privacy setting – such as location sharing or a public profile – can turn harmless updates into notices that a home is unoccupied.
A home is being broken once every 189 seconds with 166,577 burglaries occurring across England and Wales in the year ending March 2025. However, only 1 in 20 suspects is charged.
Police repeatedly warn that open profiles, public location tags and “countdown to holiday” posts can help burglars work out when a property will be empty.
The horror of returning home after a break to find evidence of attempted entry can leave mental scars. People are taking to Reddit to swap experiences and near-misses, questioning whether social media played a part.
People are googling anxious queries like “is it safe to post holiday photos,” “can burglars see my Facebook,” and “how to hide Instagram from strangers,” according to IMSR.
The problem with profiles and posts set to “public” is that strangers can see them without needing to be on your friends list. To a burglar, a steady stream of updates looks like a timetable they can fit robbing your house into.
They don’t need to know you personally. Sometimes, it can be pieced together through social media.
Security advisers liken it to putting a note in the window saying “gone until 3 January”. Burglars do not need to know the family personally.
On Instagram, it’s best to use features like “Close Friends” to only show your photos to select friends, without broadcasting their absence to the wider internet.
Experts also advise switching off automatic location tagging and posting photos of boarding passes, hotel fronts or recognisable street names while away.
Or, even better – live in the moment, then post a “photo dump” once the trip is ove
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