On Wednesday, August 18th, Facebook announced it’s latest addition to the family: Facebook Places. As a parent concerned with the internet safety of your children, this is definitely something you should know about and make a determination if you need to have your child’s privacy settings for this feature turned off…now! We’re going to make it clear what Places is all about and help you make an informed decision. Facebook Places is a location sharing feature similar to that seen with the very popular Foursquare, which allows users to “check in,” show and be shown where users and their friends are. On the surface and for many adults, this is actually quite a cool addition to Facebook and we’re sure that there are a lot of adults who will greatly enjoy utilizing this new feature. It includes a “tagging” option where your friends can even check you into a location. Direct from Facebook’s blog, here’s the skinny on Places:

With Places, you are in control of what you share and the people you share with. You choose whether or not to share your location when you check in at a place. When you check in, you can tag friends who are with you but only if their settings allow it. When you are tagged, you are always notified. Only your friends can see when you visit or are tagged at a place, unless you have specifically set your master privacy control to “Everyone.” You also have the choice to set more restrictive customized settings.

When a friend tags you through Places, you will receive a notification on Facebook and on your mobile device. The first time this happens, you’ll be given the choice to allow your friends to check you in to places.

When your friends check you in, it is as if you have checked in at that place yourself. You also will appear checked-in to your friends. If you do not allow friends to check you in, then when they tag you at a place, your name will appear in the same way it appears in a tagged status update. You will not appear checked-in at that place.

You can always remove any Places check-in or tag using your mobile device or on the web. It’s like removing yourself from a photo tag. You also have the choice to turn off the ability for friends to check you in at Places. Go to your Privacy Settings and turn off the setting to “Let Friends Check Me In.”

The problem is that no one needs to have that kind of access to where exactly your children are at all times and with Facebook’s handling of your privacy lately, I believe it better to err on the side of caution here and not allow younger users to have this feature activated. As you read above, there are safety/privacy measures built-in but as I always tell my own children, you have to assume that whatever you do or put on Facebook will eventually be public. Just because you share with “friends only” doesn’t mean that one of your friends has their privacy settings set to sharing with “Everyone.” So, in this post we’re going to give you a step-by-step tour showing you how to turn Facebook Places off and configure the privacy settings so that other people your child is friends with can’t “tag” them as having checked into a location.

First we begin with the going to the security settings which can be accessed by clicking on the “Account” link at the upper right hand side of the page and choosing “Privacy Settings” which will bring you to the page below (clicking on the thumbnail picture below will bring up a full size image).

Clicking on the “Customize settings” link in the image above will take you the screen in the image below. The most important part of using Facebook Places is, well, not to use it if you don’t like it or feel it inappropriate for your children. Children don’t have to use the feature as shown on the iPhone in the image at the top of the post, or via the web as you’re seeing in the screen capture images in this post.

In the next image below, you can see what options are available to you or your teenage children (if you allow your teen to use Places) as far as allowing who can and cannot see where you’re checking in to. As with the other privacy options, you can choose: Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends Only or Custom.

The most important step in ensuring that your child is fully opted out of the Places experience if that’s your choice is to disable the Places option which allows friends to “check you in.” This option allows a buddy who finds themselves at the same location you’re at to say (via Places) “Hey, Sue is here!” They can tag you similar to how you’ve already seen it done with photos but now with at a geographic location. In order to make sure that one of your children’s friends who may be using Places can’t tag your child at a location, refer to the image below.

Last, but not least, is what I call the homing beacon feature. As you can see in the image below, the “Include me in the ‘People Here Now’ after I’ve checked in” option allows for just that. If you’ve allowed your teen to use the Places feature and they’re at the movies with their friends and check in at that theater using Places, if they have other friends in that same building, but different theaters, they’ll be visible to each other.

What do you think about Facebook Places? Will you be allowing your children to use this feature? With statistics showing so many children younger than 13 on Facebook, I can see this being a substantial security concern for moms and dads everywhere. I even think that for tweens, allowing people to have this kind of access to their whereabouts is a little on the scary side. Again, not because of their own friends per se, but because you don’t know how all of your children’s friends have the privacy levels on their accounts set. This means that, theoretically, your child’s information coud be viewable, through a friend, by just about anybody. Let us know how you’re thinking of handling this in the comments below.

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