Are You Perhaps Helping To Steal Your Identity?
Last year close to 8 million people in the U.S. were the victims of identity theft. Surprisingly this is excellent news considering that in 2009 the number was well over 11 million. That’s a twenty eight percent decrease.
A lot of this is due to numerous banks along with national and area government agencies aggressively tracking and apprehending identity thieves. In addition there is a concerted push on a wide scale to teach consumers on the risks of identity fraud and what measures they can implement to protect themselves. In many cases consumers are taking it to heart no matter if it’s purchasing some sort of fraud insurance coverage or doing a much better job of protecting their personal information.
But there is an area where people are willingly reckless in sharing their private data. It is not that they have an overwhelming desire to have their identity stolen. It’s just the nature as well as the arena they are communicating in.
Social networks have exploded with countless online users logging in daily to talk about whatever is on their minds. At the same time they’re being quite careless with regards to sharing their individual info. Something as trivial as giving out your date of birth or telephone number is an invitation to identity thieves.
The truth is all con artist need to do is get a hold of your photo and with the information you have provided create bogus financial accounts.
Unfortunately this carelessness also extends to our phones. There was a time when a phone was just that. But now thank to all the innovations it has become a whole lot more. In the process it has made many of us susceptible to identity fraud.
Many individuals do not have a safety mechanism on their cellphone while other people store a myriad of private information without any access code protection to deter anyone who may get a hold of it.
If you are planning to be on line doing the social networking thing then be very aware of the privacy settings you have put in place and also depending upon the circumstances be prepared to adjust them when necessary. Also you can socialize quite extensively without giving anyone your birth date or phone number. Be wary of anyone that you may have put on your list that is way too eager to get a hold of this info.
As to the cell, make sure you lock it up by equipping it with some sort of password protection. You might regard this very annoying that you have to log on every time you don’t use it for an extended period however if you intend to save any kind of personal data on it then it’s an inconvenience that is worth it.
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