Look, I know this pandemic was a long, depressing slogan, and even if you masked it, did the social distance, and managed to stay virus-free, we’re all good at this point. It is therefore understandable that everyone is impatient to get one now that we have vaccinations available.
But when you finally get the jab, you have to resist the urge to post a humble post on Instagram or any other social media platform, because identity thieves are watching. And you do not want to be the newly vaccinated person whose selfie provides a template for fraudsters False vaccination record cards (because if you think this is not happening yet, you will be wrong).
“Some of you are celebrating your second COVID-19 vaccination with the obscure enthusiasm usually reserved for weddings, new babies and other life events,” the Federal Trade Commission wrote in a blog post on Friday. ‘You post a photo of your vaccination card on social media. Please – do not do this! You can invite identity theft. ‘
The card not only has the name and date of birth of the person who was vaccinated, it also contains when and where you got the chance. Unless all your social media accounts are set up privately, you share a lot of free data about yourself, which you may not want randos to know on the internet.
The New York Times spoke to some privacy experts who said that a clever scam artist could pretend to be a health official to mislead people who received the first dose of the vaccine into thinking they should pay for the second dose and should get the credit card information of the victims. And someone can use the photo of your vaccination card to recreate the cards and possibly sell counterfeit versions – something that seems to be happening in the UK already.
As part of its Vaccination with Confidence campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a plan for states to hand out stickers to the newly vaccinated, an excellent image to share on social media instead of your vaccination card.
So if you have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, accept my happiness! We are all happy for you. But we do not need to see your important information in our social feeds.