People submit information and entrust companies with the most private details on a global scale everyday. A lot of companies leak or sell such information on or distribute such details through international regions with poor security values and very little emphasis on personal privacy. With details such as mother’s maiden names, in my opinion this is a terrible security reference in the first place. Most people could easily and quickly reveal such information if the questions were disguised within a general conversation.

Facebook does offer you the option to restrict access to your profiles and to whom your information is available to. However in conjunction with what you stated, Facebook should inform their users of why and how such settings should be considered. I think this is aptly suggested in your statement:

“Whatever information you place on the net, think carefully about where else, that actually matters, you might use that information to establish who you are.”

Good read.