See, I know this pandemic has been a long, depressing blow, and even if you’ve masked yourself, got off the social distance, and managed to stay virus-free, we’re all good and exhausted at this point. So it is understandable that now that we have vaccines available, everyone is impatient to get one.
But when you do finally get the shot, resist the urge to post a humble bragging rights on Instagram or any other social media platform as identity thieves can watch. And you don’t want to be the newly vaccinated person whose selfie scammers offer a template to take fake vaccination record cards (because if you think this is not already happening, you would be mistaken).
“Some of you are celebrating your second COVID-19 vaccination with the dizzying 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 – don’t! You could invite identity theft. “
The card not only shows the name and date of birth of the vaccinated person, but also when and where you received the injection. Unless all of your social media accounts are set to private, you’re handing out a lot of free data about yourself that you wouldn’t want randos on the web to know about.
The New York Times spoke to some privacy experts who said a smart scammer could impersonate a health officer to trick people who received the first dose of the vaccine into thinking they have to pay for the second dose and get the victims’ credit card information. And someone could use the photo of your vaccination card to fake the cards and sell possibly counterfeit versions – something that is apparently already happening in the UK.
As part of their Vaccinate with Confidence campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a plan for states to hand out stickers to newly vaccinated individuals, an excellent visual to share on social media in lieu of your vaccination card.
So if you have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, accept my congratulations! We are all happy for you. But we don’t need to see your vital information all over our social feeds.