Just Being Neighborly

Your neighborhood should be and can be a place of safety. A few minutes of cautious thought can bring decades of peace. Following are a few points of caution to keep in mind:

Unfortunately, people who are constantly saying things like, “I’m just keeping an eye on things,” might be misusing crime apps and data-broker websites to appear important. Here are two of the most common ways this occurs:

• They engage in spamming official-appearing data broker websites, making repeated, tweaked queries to mix up information between individuals, which causes false positive matches.

• They use specialized software to send fake texts, impersonating trusted individuals and

  causing chaos, especially in neighborhoods without in-person neighborhood association meetings.

Suggestions to Protect Yourself

1. Remove yourself from fee-based, data-broker sites.

2. Be cautious about new people who do the following:

   • Ask a lot of personal questions about you,

   • Offer unsolicited help with your house or property,

   • Seem overly interested in your daily routine.

   • Act overly intrusive under the guise of watching for safety.

3. Sign up for your carrier’s free spam blocker, and learn about text spoofing protection.

4. Know the facts about fee-based background checks: A 2023 preprint study by Lageson and Steward, published in Criminology 2024, suggests that unregulated background checks were inaccurate for false positives 50 percent of the time, and regulated checks (FCRA compliant) were inaccurate 60 percent of the time, most likely due to a financial incentive to over report. (Check back for more on background checks).

5. Attend in-person neighborhood association or neighborhood watch meetings.

6. If a situation ever feels unsafe or uncomfortable, trust your instincts and remove yourself, and notify authorities if needed.