Steal my family secrets?

July 19, 2007 8:42 PM

Can people access information on Geni.com to steal an identity?

We have started a family tree on geni.com and it is growing fantastically. However, as with every family, there are a few spoil sports. They keep telling relatives that it is an easy way for someone to steal their identity. Many visits to the security area of the geni site and explanations from geni have not laid these issues to rest. I am looking for anyone that can give me a story of were an identity was stolen and it was, unquestionably, due to geni.com

posted by GeneticFreek to human relations (2 comments total)

Do you enter private information such as social security numbers, where you bank, etc on this site? If it's just a list of names and birthdates, that information is already public and available without any hacking, and is generally not enough to "steal" someone's identity. An email to all your family members explaining this might help, and you may want to include links to some information at http://www.idtheftcenter.org/
posted by bizwank at 9:00 PM on July 19, 2007

You can enter birth date, and sometimes place if known, death date if deceased and place, marriage dates and place, e-mail addresses to invite people, home address, photos and your family members. You can figure out your Mother's maiden name because it is a tree. This is sometimes a password but generally not enough to get much information.
Some of the security features allow you to hide various pieces of this info such as year of birth, current location, e-mail address. You can hide as much or as little as you want.
You can let your profile be edited by others or only by yourself. Only members that have been invited to your tree can see the tree and only family members that are on the tree, can be invited. Of the 800 people on our tree, approx, 10% have been invited to see the tree.
posted by GeneticFreek at 9:51 PM on July 19, 2007