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This is the fifth post in a series debunking some common misunderstandings about online privacy. The images used in these posts have been adapted from a tutorial given by Gerald Friedland at ACM Multimedia in Nara, Japan in October. Read previous posts: one, two, three, four.

Just because you aren't posting information about yourself doesn't mean that other people aren't. Lots of people post pictures from vacations, weddings, and other events that you may have attended. There could also be information about you online having to do with your job, for instance on a company web site. Even the government might be sharing information about you without your knowledge. Gerald Friedland recently commented on concerns about publicly available statistics from surveys, the census, and other government sources. Read more about it and watch the video.

Therefore, while not posting on social networks might result in less of your personal information being online, it doesn't mean there isn't information, some of which you might prefer to keep private, available on publicly accessible web sites.