To think influencers are putting own family safety at risk?

[MrDarcysMa]

I don't follow many Instagram 'influencers' but a few interiors ones, mainly local.
One local one whose account I enjoy has expressed concern before about intruders/ stalkers. They also just mentioned in their last post about their house backing onto a local landmark. It's near me so out of interest I google mapped it, as I remember them saying they were afraid of stalkers before so wondered how easy it would be to locate it.

Surprisingly I was able to identify their exact house/ address straight away they'd posted so many pics of their house/ garden it was quite clear which one was theirs.

Isn't this crazy risky? I'm just a slightly bored follower on my lunch break- what if I was a potential stalker ? I almost sent them a DM to give them a heads up but realised I might look like a stalker

There was an article online about this a while back basically showing pictures people had posted on FB/Insta etc and how simple it was to find them based on images and snippets they post.

I found the home of a very famous bloke once who's fandom is, let's say, 'rabid', just by being nosey at local planning applications. Somewhere along the line someone had cocked up and put the application in his name rather than via the architect.

I'd be horrified if I had kids and was in the public eye and worried about their safety then realised any old weirdo can (and probably has) figured out where I live/ what school my kids go to, etc!

@Abodewankenobi was it Harry Styles?

I figured out where Elijah Wood lived once, read something about a crime where he was a witness, put that together with a photo he'd taken and was 100% sure which was his house. Not that I could stalk him in LA from here, but point was again anyone with 5 minutes and an interest can find people anywhere in the world.

Difference being I guess is that big celebrities will have some kind of security. Influencers probably not so much.

[quote MrDarcysMa]@Abodewankenobi was it Harry Styles?[/quote]
No, not Harry. More elementary than that 😉

There are a few influencers reasonably near me and I know where they all live without having to even think about it because they post photos of the front of their house. It really does seem crazy. Plus if I see them out and about I know their kid’s names, ages, interests etc. It’s a huge breach of their right to live as private citizens.

With another influencer who isn’t local to me I was curious how much their house cost and found it in seconds on Rightmove. I have no intention of stalking them.

But, um ... what's the issue with people knowing where you live? Do stalkers really think 'ooh, I'm a weirdo, I know, I'll choose to trawl instagram, find someone whose house number I can find out, and stalk them?'

I've thought about this too. I wouldn't want to post my dc online to thousands of "followers"

@SarahAndQuack

But, um ... what's the issue with people knowing where you live? Do stalkers really think 'ooh, I'm a weirdo, I know, I'll choose to trawl instagram, find someone whose house number I can find out, and stalk them?'

Oh the naïveté

It's pretty easy to figure out where anyone lives if you really wanted to do that.

Googling to see if you can find out someones address is a bit weird though

There was a case in Japan where a female pop star posted a selfie online and a guy managed to see the train station she was at reflected in her eye and he tracked her down and attacked her. There are a lot of creepy people out there.

It’s totally bonkers. Mrs Hinch’s address is freely available on the internet (I know this as a friend runs a business and sent her a gift in the hope mrs hinch might feature it on her page... she didn’t). The woman has 3m subscribers, surely at least one of them has the potential to be unhinged and be a security issue

But what is the issue, then?

I'm really asking. It's not hard to find out an address most of the time.

I get that pop stars etc. must have issues with it, but if your home is your business (which it is if you're one of those influencers who posts all about your home) then surely yes, people will know where you live. Just as they would if you ran a business out of your study and circulated your business address?

I mean, there's an instagrammer I follow who does it to advertise her house as a film set/holiday let, which I think is fairly common. How is she meant to do that without letting on about her address?! It would be bonkers.

There is a very wealthy, high profile influencer family near me.

They post photos of their children in their distinctive local (private) school uniform, with just the badge blurred.

Fucking idiots.

Well I think the issue is that if you have a public profile and lots of online followers you have far more people taking an interest in you and your life than a person who doesn’t do this. Some of those people can become obsessed. At times I’ve become extremely interested in the lives of people I only know online. Not everyone has healthy boundaries and online can spill over into real life. I wouldn’t want my child to be in the park and know that many of the other people there know all about her life.

It's nothing new.
Advice has always been be careful about what you post on line because anyone can see it.

A part of my job is social media, I have some generic things that I use in the photos so they don't become identifiable - indoors the outside is closed, green/blue screens, and outside it could be anywhere.

I'm nobody. I'm not an influencer. Didn't stop me getting stalked years ago, and this was before I started to use SM professionally. I had never met the person before, don't live near each other. Just one day I said something like I hope I can and omg that was it. Luckily they couldn't get to me in rl, well apart from a random email and a rarely used mobile number that was unregistered.

Stalking is weird. Ever since I read that thread about the first date expensive car stalker, nothing surprises me anyone more knowing the lengths people will dig into someone else's life.

I can see how that might be, @blackcurrant66, but then, if you are making your money by posting about your home, then it seems pretty obvious you are going to have to decide if you can cope with your home being in publicly visible posts.

If I were a private person who worried about random people knowing my home, I probably wouldn't want to be an influencer, right? (I'm neither especially private nor remotely interested in being an influencer, FTR).

Anyone can find out anyone’s address if they want to by going to the council and looking at the electoral roll. Many home addresses are on companies house or on planning applications etc.

There was a time in very recent history when everyone’s address was in the phone book apart from a select few who went ex-directory.

I think there’s a perceived risk here, but the actual risk of anything happening at all is tiny.

I sit in courtrooms every day. A stalker is a stalker is a stalker. The huge majority of victims are just normal people who have been targeted for random reasons.

I did my dissertation on this. It’s phenomenal what people willingly publish about themselves. And yes @SarahAndQuack people go loopy and do the most astonishing things when they find out ‘secret’ personal details aBout famous people. Some of my case studies were absolutely petrifying.

I'm sure they do. But I wouldn't think someone who's posting about interior design is at much risk.

Is the FB tag still a thing? Map out the persons life from that alone, a like to that local hairdresser its a step closer.

Some do it accidentally by not checking their settings, look at the google stuff, set that to public and everyone sees a whole heap about you. Even put your picture next to that review you wrote and have it show up in search pages.

Sarah I was on a forum like this and attracted my stalker.

It doesn't really matter.

Someone isn't going to be tempted into being an axe murderer just because they saw a picture of a house on the internet and know where it is.

Plenty of renovation/decor accounts are quite open about where they are, as sometimes the area is itself part of the 'story' their account tells.

Obsessive stalkers have always been an issue and have almost always been able to track down a celeb of their choosing with little effort. Companies House has a load of personal info up and people snoop on the famous all the time. I doubt a few photos of a pretty Cotswold cottage are going to turn a normal person into a nutter.

THere was also a thread on here a few years ago. about our on line privacy.
One person volunteered to show how easy the search was and several members put their nicknames forward.
The person found loads of info - work, area, how many kids, jobs and more.

A neighbour is a bit famous, and if you know the area you would be able to identify the building he lives in from pictures in magazines or images on his instagram.

Someone I know a bit is a professional rugby player and a coach, I had a look at his coaching as I was interested and discovered that the contact for his company was his home address.

Saying that, if someone has an unhealthy obsession with a celebrity or an influencer they could probably track them down without the images of homes etc on instagram.