Why you should never post your vacation pics on Social networking sites

Internet does a whole lot of things. One thing it doesn't do is forget. Increasingly, that hard lesson is being taught to Canadians by insurers and employers.

In the latest instance, a Quebec woman has lost her disability benefits after her insurer, Manulife, discovered photos on her Facebook profile of her vacationing. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, had been off work for more than a year. When her monthly benefits stopped, she phoned her insurer for an explanation.

She was told that Manulife had discovered a series of pictures of her on vacation and no longer believed she was disabled. Blanchard countered that the short trips were suggested by her doctor as curatives. The case is headed to court Dec. 8. Blanchard's dilemma is one of a growing number of conflicts revolving around the intersection of social networking and the legal system.

Searching social networking sites is fairly common now, says one of the co-owner of Toronto's Infinity Investigation, a private detective agency. He described finding pictures of the targets of his investigations on vacation and out at night in bars and clubs. Often, they're in the picture doing some sort of physical activity. Then they turn around and say they can't perform it.


It's on the same level as insurance companies that hire private detectives to hide behind people's hedges to photograph them mowing their lawn when they're supposed to have a back injury. It's an invasion of privacy, but it's not illegal.

Blanchard's position is increasingly common.  If the people who are using social networks are at all vulnerable in any areas of their life, they should be very careful about what they post, because whatever they post is part of the public domain.