Facebook aims to do more to tackle scams

Facebook users being scammed and their accounts being hacked is becoming a major problem, the Head of European Public Policy for the site, Lord Richard Allan, has admitted.

Allan told the Guardian newspaper that as a result of this, Facebook was tightening up its security by introducing some new measures to help detect when accounts might have been compromised.

This consists of tracking and flagging any potentially suspicious activities across the social networking site’s half a billion strong worldwide membership.

If an account is accessed from an “unusual” location, extra security questions will be asked upon logging in. Also, if an account is accessed by a new device not previously associated with it, Facebook will notify the user by text or email.

These sound like sensible precautions to us. Facebook has recently been in the headlines for the wrong security reasons, with the freshly launched location sharing service Places being implicated in burglars timing break-ins for when people are away.