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Do Not Give Out Your Social Security Number

In the United States of American every legal citizen is assigned a unique personal identity number more commonly known as a “Social Security Number”. This piece of information allows US citizens the right to gain employment, to receive social security benefits and many other rights allowed under US law.

Most American banking institutes require a social security number to be on file at the time a new account is opened, so to insure that the citizen is who they claim to be. So, it becomes very important to protect this information from becoming public knowledge and not to give your social security number out, just to anyone asking for the information that you do not know.

Avoid giving your Social Security Number to online or offline survey companies or to people and companies over the phone or on the Internet, unless the site is encrypted using SSL security protocol (Sites using SSL security protocols will display a locked lock usually gold in color either at the top or bottom of the secured page on the website).

Avoid giving your Social Security Number out, because you receive an official looking email requesting the information, because many times these types of emails are scams designed to steal personal information from the person who the email was sent to. If a person receives an email that appears to have been sent by a banking institute even one that the person actually banks with, then contact the bank directly either by phone, email or in person to confirm that the email sent was really from them.

Do not take all emails received at face value, because it only takes one mistake to have your personal identity stolen. This instruction also applies to emails claiming to come from online auction sites or employment agencies that a person has contacted recently or is a member of.

Avoid Using Your Real Identity In Online Forums and Social Networking Sites

The Internet is a hive of links that are intertwined to connect people and governments from all over the world and any information that a person reveals about themselves can be accessed by companies, government agencies and strangers in a matter of minutes. Avoid using your real name when participating in online forums or social networks, but instead use a screen name in these public places and keep any personally identifying information about yourself hidden from the public’s eye anytime when it is possible.

Identity thieves are always trying to obtain personal identifying information about people, so they can become the person that the information had been stolen from, so that they can obtain credit cards, open bank accounts or even worse commit other more serious crimes in their victim’s name. All the while, the identity theft victim is left holding the bag resulting in any activity that the identity thief has committed during the time the thief became their victim. Many times the identity thief is never caught and brought to justice for these types of crimes and their victims must wade through the red tape of clearing their good name.

Shred All Documents Containing Personally Identifying Information

When disposing documents such as billing information, sales receipts, subscription cards or any other documents that contains personal identifying information in them, it is important to dispose these documents responsibility. Shred all documents containing any personal identifying information, before throwing into the trash. Use a shredder that will shred those documents into the tiniest bits of paper possible, so that no identity thief can just put the documents back together like a jigsaw puzzle and retrieve the information that they need to steal your identity.

Shred All Unused Credit Cards and Credit Card Applications

Frequently, banking institutes and credit card bureaus mail out pre-approved credit card applications to qualified individuals, so to sale those individuals on receiving their credit cards. Some of these credit card application packets contain personal information about the individual and usually included in these packets are temporary credit cards that the individual may use until the actual credit card is mailed to the individual. In the wrong hands, these credit card application packets can lead to the first stages of full-blown identity theft if left unchecked.

If anyone should ever receive a credit card application by mail and choose not to apply for the credit card, then be sure to shred everything received in the application packet including the temporary credit card. Shred it into the tiniest pieces as possible, so that there is no way to put the pieces back together again.

Check Your Credit Report At Least Once Every Six Months

If you own any credit cards or not, it is very important to check your credit report at least twice per year, so that you can spot any activity that you yourself has not authorized regarding your account. Unauthorized activity could be a sign that your personal identity has been already compromised and you need to start contacting the credit bureaus, banks and National Credit Reporting Agencies to begin the process of closing all of your accounts, so no further damages can be occurred in your good name.

Try to avoid checking your credit report more than twice a year and do not give companies that you are doing business with permission to check your credit report more than one-time, because this practice can actually cause your credit history to be damaged over time. Sometimes a credit report check is necessary when purchasing a big-ticket item or when applying for some types of jobs, so keep this in mind when giving your permission allowing a company to conduct a credit history background check.

Routinely Change Passwords On The Websites That You Use

Anyone who uses the Internet must setup some type of Internet account and part of that account process includes setting up a password. Usually most individuals makeup a password that is easy for them to remember, so that they can easily and quickly log in and start surfing the web. The minority of Internet users will never change this password, because they either do not realize that their password can be compromised or they are just too lazy to change it from time to time. When in reality there are hackers on the Internet attempting to gain access to private Internet accounts, so to steal personal information or just to cause havoc across the Internet by sending out viruses and worms using other people’s email accounts.

It is a good idea to change a password once every couple of weeks, so to keep the hackers guessing and making the hackers’ jobs more difficult to achieve. This advice applies to any website that an individual belongs to that requires the individual to setup a screen name and password, before they can log into their account.

Password Protect Any Personal Information Located On Your Computer

Since more and more individuals are using their personal computers to conduct domestic business such as budgeting their finances, paying bills and filing taxes from home, it is very important to do everything to protect their personal information that is stored on their hard drive. Most operating systems that are used by the majority of computers come equipped with a set a password option. Find this option and set a personal password to further protect the personal information that is stored on the computer’s hard drive.

Install A Firewall On Your Computer

Installing a good firewall is a very important step to take, so to prevent outside intruders from gaining access of an individual’s personal data stored on the hard drive or contained within the information that the individual provided to an online account. Firewalls can prevent most intrusions, but not all. A determine hacker can find a way to compromise almost any security measure, but usually they prefer locating the easiest, most insecure computer systems and/or servers, so that they can slip in and back out with the information that they came for within minutes.

Think of a firewall like that of a home security system and the hacker like a burglar. A burglar normally will want to locate a home with as many unsecured access points as possible and the burglar would just assume breaking into a home without a home security system, then a home with one, because they do not want to be caught for one thing and they want to get in and get out with as much property as possible in the quickest time as they can. Now if the burglar were to pick the wrong property to break into and set off a home security system in the process, then they will want to runaway, before they get caught. The same thing applies to a hacker and a firewall is much like a home security system, but for the computer.

Install An Up-to-date Anti-Virus Program On Your Computer

On the Internet there are hundreds of thousands of different types of computer viruses swimming through the surf and while some are relatively harmless others are quite dangerous and could cause everything from loss of data to computer malfunction. No matter how harmless a virus is, all viruses pose a threat to an individual’s computer security. Installing and maintaining an updated anti-virus program into the individual’s computer system can reduce the threats that computer viruses can cause to ones personal security. A good anti-virus program can remove, heal or disable a computer virus, so that it cannot do any serious damage to the security or function of an individual’s computer system.

It is very important to routinely visit the publisher that publishes the anti-virus software that the individual chooses to install for updates, so that the anti-virus software will continue to protect the security of the individual’s computer system the way it had been originally designed to do. Many people using anti-virus and other software programs neglect to keep their security software updated or let their software subscription expire leaving their computer system vulnerable to computer virus attacks and unauthorized hacker entries. Just because an anti-virus program appears to be working properly does not mean it is actually working, especially if the subscription has been allowed to expire.

Allowing anti-virus, anti-spyware and personal firewall software subscriptions expire means that the software publishers are not obligated by law or contract to provide any further software maintenance or updates to their customers that have chosen to allow their subscription to expire. If the software is no longer receiving the most critical security updates from the software publisher, then that software is no longer able to provide the most secure security for that individual’s computer system and it opens the door for potentially harmful new Internet threats that would be normally protected against by the updated security software.

Install A Current Anti-Spyware Program On Your Computer

There are thousands of websites on the Internet that employs spyware to allow the webmasters or website managers to be able to track visitors who elects to visit their website. Some more advanced types of spyware software allows a person, company or government agency to keep tabs on any Internet surfing conducted by private individuals that has come in contact with this type of spyware software. The spyware can be stored in many places throughout the computer whether it is stored on the hard drive or in the web browser or some other place, spyware is spyware and is used to track the Internet activity of individuals using the Internet for whatever reasons that they choose.

Installing and keeping an anti-spyware software updated properly will allow the individual to take back the control of their computer system and keep prying eyes out of their personal business. The anti-spyware software will scan the computer system and locate the threat and either remove or disable the spyware, so that it cannot track the individual’s Internet activity any further.

Avoid Filling Out Surveys The Internet

There are literally millions of individuals who regularly participate in online or offline surveys on a daily basis, just giving away their privacy one survey at a time. Most surveys are designed to obtain as much personal information as possible from those individuals who choose to actively participate in the surveys, many times lured in to taking the surveys with promises of financial gain or free product rewards. However, promising the reward is perceived in the eye of the survey taker, but the risks are much greater to the possible future identity of the individual being compromised.

Many, but not all survey companies are actually marketing companies trying to make a quick buck off of the naïve survey taker. The information that is collected will be shared with the company or companies who have paid to have the survey conducted and many of the survey companies routinely will continue to sell, rent or share the personal information that is collected from the individuals who participated in a survey for many years to come.

Just take the time to read a companies privacy policy and you will learn exactly how the information collected from individuals who have chose to participate in the survey will be used by the company. If there is not a privacy statement to read and agree with or disagree with, then its better to avoid participating in any surveys with that company altogether, so to avoid any possible compromise of the individual’s personal information from leaking out in the public domain for anyone to obtain.

Read The Privacy Statements Before Entering Any Contest

If an individual has ever spent any time at all surfing the Internet, then they would have already realized just how many companies and websites frequently holds prize drawings, raffles, sweepstakes and contests. Millions upon millions of Internet surfers have either entered or will enter one of these contests before this day has ended. While there isn’t any real danger of entering most of these types of contests there is always the chance to entering a fake or a rouge contest or sweepstakes that is designed to collect either personal information or email addresses, so to sell, rent or share with other companies or individuals becoming part of a larger marketing campaign.

Ever wonder why at times there seems to be piles of marketing emails flooding your inbox? Well, it is quite possible that you have entered one or more of these contests or sweepstakes or even subscribed to a newsletter or two at some point and time. This is the main reason why companies and individuals regularly hold these contests or offer free newsletters, so to collect the most current up-to-date personal information from those individuals signing up for them. Even scarier is that an individual’s personal information could end up in the hands of an identity thief and the individual could end up with more than the prize that they had bargained for at the time.

Be sure to locate and read the privacy statement of the company or individual holding the contest, raffle, sweepstake or offering the free newsletter, so to understand how they will treat the personal information that they are collecting from participants entering or accepting their contests or newsletters. If there is no privacy statement to be found on the website or in the contest rules, then do not volunteer any personal information or email addresses and just move on to another website. It just isn’t worth risking your personal identity for the chance to win some small prize or receive a newsletter, if it means chancing your personal identity and/or information to the unknown.

Remove Any Personal Information From Magazines or Mailings

Each year throughout the world publishers’ mail-out hundreds of millions of magazine subscriptions to individuals paying to have their favorite magazines delivered to the homes. Unlike, purchasing these magazines off of a newsstand the magazines that are delivered to an individual’s home contains some personal identifying information, which was printed on the magazine, so that it could be shipped in the mail. Usually this information contains the name and address of the magazine’s subscriber.

Now this type of information may go unnoticed as a potential security threat, but to the seasoned identity thief it could mean the first step to securing a driver’s license and a birth certificate in your name and eventually it could lead the identity thief to obtaining a social security number and credit cards in the victim’s name. This kind of information could cause a great deal of damage to the good reputation of an innocent victim of identity theft.

Before donating or disposing any old magazines be sure to remove any identifying information from the magazines first and then, dispose the magazine anyway that you choose. Better safe than sorry.

Do Not Carry Both Your Driver’s License and Social Security Card Together

In recent years, many states throughout the United States of America have adopted the routine of allowing individuals the choice of having their social security number printed directly on their driver’s license, but this poses a tremendous security threat to an individual’s personal privacy in many ways.

First, anytime an individual allows another individual to check their driver’s license for any number of reasons, then that individual is revealing their social security number along with their driver’s license number and their home address to a perfect stranger in most cases. Second, if the driver’s license is lost, then it becomes a real possibility that their personal and very private information could become compromised if it falls into the wrong hands.

Lastly, if the driver’s license is stolen, then the individual that stole it is now in full procession of everything that is needed to assume that individual’s identity. It is not a wise choice to have a social security number added to a driver’s license no matter what benefits are promised by electing to have it added to the driver’s license.

Even if an individual elects to reject the addition of the social security number to be added to their diver’s license, many other individuals do carry both their social security card and their driver’s license in the same wallet, purse or handbag that still pose a security risk of possible identity theft. If an individual’s wallet, purse or handbag gets lost or stolen, then the individual who stole it still is now in sole procession of all of their victim’s personal identifying information that could be used to assume their victim’s identity and go on to obtain credit cards and bank checks in their victim’s name.

It is better to memorize your social security number and store the actual social security card in a safe place rather than taking the chance of it getting lost or stolen along with a driver’s license and other personal information that could be stored in a wallet, purse or handbag.

Store Any Important Documents In A Safe

Any security adviser worth their salt will advise an individual to invest in a good secure fire-proof or fire-resistant safe or lock box to store any personal or financial documents in to keep them safe and from the prying eyes of those who have no business knowing your business. When purchasing a safe be sure that the safe is large enough to store all of your personal belongings and documents in and heavy enough to prevent someone from just picking it up and walking away with it. It is best to bolt the safe into a concrete foundation and place it somewhere that is out of plain sight, maybe in a closet or in a basement.

Check Your Mailbox Everyday

Be sure to check your mailbox everyday as early as possible or just as soon as the postman has delivered the mail. There are individuals that routinely steal mail from mailboxes in the hopes to discover personally revealing information about the people that the mail belongs to and sometimes the mail thief will get lucky and find a social security check, retirement check or birthday money that was delivered to an individual’s mailbox.

Take time to make sure that your mailbox is properly closing, so that the door isn’t left wide open, so that the entire world can see your business. Before going out-of-town for any extended amount of time arrange to have your mail stored at your local post office, until you return home and you can retrieve the mail at the post office at a later date. Do not send personal bank checks out through the mail, but instead purchase a money order to pay bills or send money through the mail.

Avoid Doing Business With Internet Vendors That Do Not Have A Physical Business Address, Phone Number and A Secured Socket System

Before conducting business with any company or individual on the Internet check to see if the company or individual has included a verifiable physical business address, customer service phone number and a secure socket system to receive a payment from their customers (look for a gold color locked lock either at the top or bottom of the page). If this information is not present or available avoid doing business with them.

Use Pre-paid Credit Cards To Make Purchases On The Internet

There are a whole lot of people who refuse to use their credit cards to make a purchase on the Internet, because they are worried about the security or that their credit card number could be stolen and I can’t say that I blame them, because it is a valid concern. There are many other payment options now available to the consumer than ever before. An individual can setup an online bank account with Paypal, Google Checkout or any one of the other online banking institutions available on the Internet.

Or, if the individual prefers to complete an online transaction with a debit card or credit card, then that individual can purchase a pre-paid debit or credit card through Green-Dot or arrange with their offline banking institute to secure a credit card or debit care that is safer for Internet use. Some banks do offer credit cards and debit cards that have one-time use or temporary Pen Numbers that are changed after every unique transaction, ask your bank if they offer any such credit card or debit card that is safer for Internet transactions.

Maintain A Current List Of Phone Numbers To Your Banks and Credit Card Companies

In case your personal information has been lost, stolen or compromised in anyway, then you need to report it right away to your credit card agencies, the credit bureaus and to your banks, so that any new activity can be monitored or stopped, before any real damage is done to your good name. Keep a current list of phone numbers to any company that may be needed in case of an emergency like the ones mentioned above.

Consider Purchasing Identity Theft Protection Insurance

If you did not know before reading this article, there are a few insurance companies now offering identity theft protection insurance that is designed to limit the losses that can be associated with identity theft. From what I have read, the insurance is relatively inexpensive when considering the potential losses and hardship an identity thief can cause an individual. These insurance policies do vary from company to company, but some protection is better than no protection at all.

One such insurance plan to protect against potentially devastating personal losses resulting from identity theft is called PrivacyGuard Insurance and there are other insurance plans available and can be found on the Internet, just by querying your favorite search engine using the search keyword(s) “Identity Theft Protection Insurance”.