'It wasn't me!'

That's easily said, but who will believe you when it is you making destructive comments on weblogs, accumulating huge amounts of debt or even committing crimes? Branding yourself on social media is a powerful tool to reach in a short period of time many people, to promote yourself and share all kind of information!But be aware of the information you share! Before you even realize it, you are dealing with identity theft.

We often share information on the web without thinking. We share our names, email addresses, education and working background, credit card information and so on. The consequences of identity theft are diverse but mostly profound. The most harming form occurs when someone pretends to be you in order to disrupt your life. This can take the form of stalking and provoking or even steeling your social media identity for financial purposes. In the latter case, your identity is used to buy stuff on your credit card or open new accounts on your name. And it doesn't stop there.. What if someone commits fraudulent crimes in your name? It ruins your whole reputation and cancels out further professional and personal opportunities. It doesn't even look hard to steal someones identity. Have a look at following example:

It's an example of a guy who, while developing a ranking algorithm for Twitter, Twitterank, discovered how easily account information could be obtained. This example was an innocent one, but shows again how easily private information can be abused on social media.

Is there anything we can do in order to protect ourselves against identity theft through social media?
Some recommendations:

- If possible, use always your full name when doing the registration on social media sites. This in order to prevent someone else acting in your name.
- Limit sharing personal information to what you think is really relevant
- Create a free Google Alerts account for your name. Every time your name will pop up online, you will be warned by email.
- Boost your online reputation. Create a blog and provide content that indirectly boost your reputation. Look for search engine optimization in order to be sure that when your name is googled, good things about yourself (your brand) are found first.
- In case you discover someone using your identity, contact immediately the administrators of that social media platform in order to put things right!

And of course always keep in mind: anticipate, anticipate, anticipate! Once your reputation is damaged, whether online or offline, your reputation is lost!