On a scale of 1 to 10 just how safe is all our personal information? Think about it, we have been advised by television ads, read reports, watched documentries, radio ads, newspaper headlines, telling us to be more careful about how we destroy our personal details. So, we spend hours of our time carefully tearing, shredding, burning all our old bank and building society statements and any other vital documents that hold even the slightest hint of a personal detail and then what happens… the wife puts it all up on a social networking site for everyone to have a good look.

Sir John Sawers, the new Head of MI6, had his position compromised as his web-savvy wife put certain information about himself and the whereabouts of their 3 children on the popular social networking site Facebook. Not only did his wife post information about her husband, she also put up pictures of family and friends which included a former diplomat and senior politicians. Lady Sawers also put ‘no privacy’ on her account which means that any of 200 million users could have accessed
her information entered.

Some politicians are dismissing this, saying it was a simple lapse on the part of Lady Sawers. Others, including Edward Davy the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, want Gordon Brown to launch a full enquiry. David Miliband the foreign secretary played down the significance of the photos saying, “We all know that John wears Speedos on his holidays”, Miliband denied that any secrets were leaked and was critical of the press for blowing the whole situation out of proportion.

With social networking sites becoming a way of life for most people, perhaps we should update the ‘protection of personal information‘ mantra we are fed to help people become more aware of just how powerful these social sharing sites are and also remind us all to be more careful about what information and pictures we post online. Who knows just who is reading them : a long lost relative, a future employer, an expert forger, your local burglar?