Webupon

This is the first step in finding out how much of your personal information is out there on the Internet for anyone to see. Search your first and last name, e-mail address, physical address, work address, last name and employer and any other search terms that may bring up information about yourself. Do not Google your social security numbers since Google searches themselves may be seen by others.

Bookmark all of those sites where detailed information about you comes up, especially your phone number and address. Contact the webmaster of those sites and request that your information be removed.

Can You Be Anonymous?

It has become harder and harder to be anonymous and live below the radar. Most likely if you have ever bought a home, owned a car, enrolled a child in school, signed up for a promotional offer, etc, you have shared your personal information with someone. In many cases your information is sold to advertising companies for profit by institutions such as your bank.

You have the option to not share your personal information. In the case of your bank call customer service and inquire about your privacy options. Request that they be set to not share any personal information with third parties. When filling out forms always opt out of sharing your information and do not check the box on online forms to receive promotional offers or information.

If you subscribe to home telephone service you will have to pay the phone company a fee not to be in directory searches.

Junk Mail and Telephone Solicitation

You can contact http://www.donotcall.gov and stop most telephone solicitation and stop most junk mail by contacting the following site:  http://www.stopjunkmail.org/

You can reduce identity theft by stopping credit card offers at the following site:

https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t

Online Payments

Some banks feature a temporary credit card number that you can use for online purchases instead of your primary number. This number expires after a couple of days which deters identity theft.

Another option is to use Paypal. 

Secure Checkout

When checking out on shopping sites make sure that you see “Https://” in the address bar. This indicated that it is a secure web page. Although it is not a complete guarantee of security it shows that at least the merchant is making an effort to secure their site from hackers.  Another good sign is the “Thawte” hacker prevention seal on the site, which indicates that the merchant participates in a hacker prevention program whereby their server is protected by SSL encryption by a third party company specializing in website security.