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About this tool
Score how much your holiday posting advertises an empty house, and see which settings and habits actually reduce it.
The Family Holiday Photo Sharing Guide scores how much your trip posting advertises an empty house, weighing the things that actually matter — posting live rather than after you return, a public audience, stated dates, location tags, and a house or number plate in frame — against the arrangements you have made at home. It reports the number of nights your absence is publicised, and caps how much any mitigation can reduce that, because a published post cannot be recalled. Written for families who want to share the holiday without turning it into a notice board.
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The score is driven by how long the absence is public, which is the number a burglar would actually use.
Social uploads usually strip GPS data; emailed originals and cloud links do not, and a platform location tag is deliberate either way.
A house-sitter and an alarm reduce the score by at most 60%, because they change the consequences, not the disclosure.
The big platforms re-encode uploads and strip most EXIF, including GPS coordinates, so an Instagram or Facebook post usually does not carry the raw location. Sending the original file does — email attachments, cloud share links, and messages sent as a document keep the coordinates, timestamp and device model. A location tag you add yourself is separate and always visible.
After you get back, if you have a choice. Posting live is the single largest factor in the exposure score, because it publishes not just where you are but for how long the house will be empty. If you do post while away, keep the return date, the location tag and any view of your home out of it, and post to a curated list rather than to everyone.
Insurers have publicly warned that advertising an absence on social media can be raised when a burglary claim is assessed, and some policies contain clauses about reasonable care. Whether it affects a specific claim depends entirely on your policy wording and the circumstances, so read your own policy and ask your insurer rather than relying on general guidance.
Full names, school uniforms and school crests, in any combination — together they identify where a child is on every weekday. Also avoid house numbers, street signs and the front door in the same album, and check whether the platform is auto-tagging faces. If you want relatives to see the photos, a private shared album with named participants is far better than a public post.