I don’t know much about being a spy, but I’m fairly certain it’s not the best idea to have your address, the address of your parents, and the address of your children posted publicly online for the world to see. Unfortunately, for Sir John Sawers, the incoming Head of the British Intelligence Agency MI6, this is exactly what happened.

Over the weekend, the British press reported that Lady Shelly Sawers, the wife of John Sawers, accidentally revealed her family’s personal details to the world when she neglected to enable privacy controls on her Facebook page. Because her profile was open to the London, UK, network, anyone living in the area with an account had access to her information. Naturally, the British government moved quickly to mitigate any blowback from the embarrassing incident, disabling Lady Sawers’ Facebook account and issuing statements to the press downplaying the event.

Nevertheless, some members of British Parliament, such as Liberal Democrat Edward Davy, have called Sawers’ preparedness for the position into question. In a statement Davy called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to, “immediately commission an internal inquiry as to whether this has breached the security of the incoming head of MI6 too seriously to allow him to take up the post.”

  James Bond would have never had this problem.

While I’ve had a little bit of fun with Mr. Sawers’ privacy problem, there is  nothing funny about the dangers of the Internet. Taking a proactive stance in managing your identity online is the most important step you can take to protect yourself from scammers, stalkers, and identity thieves. Make sure you know how to use the privacy controls on your social networking sites and always think before you make a public post. We might not all be heads of intelligence agencies, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be intelligent about protecting yourself on the web.

Hat tip to Mashable, where I first caught this story.