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How to protect your ID when your
personal data has been lost/
Worried about the safety of your
personal data?
The Child Benefit Agency has lost
the personal details of every parent
who receives child benefit,
including names, addresses, dates of
birth, national insurance numbers,
child benefit numbers and bank
accounts. As a result, 25 million
people are now vulnerable to
identity fraud if the data on two
discs falls into the wrong hands.
See the information lenders see when you apply for a loan. View your Experian credit report online for FREE
They aren’t the only ones. In a
matter of weeks, data breaches have
been reported by organisations as
diverse as Standard Life and Next.
No wonder recent research showed
that many of us do not trust big
institutions to keep our personal
information safe. The Canvases
Opinion survey found that 34 per
cent of us do not trust insurance
companies, 33 per cent think
Internet retailers aren’t secure and
32 per cent believe that government
cannot be relied on to safeguard the
data that can be used to impersonate
us, borrow money in our names – and
ruin our lives
If you think you could be at risk,
take these simple precautions as
soon as possible.
1. Check your bank statements
carefully. With your account
data and basic personal information,
criminals could try to get hold of
your money. If you spot any
unfamiliar transactions, tell your
bank immediately and explain the
circumstances.
2. Look at your credit report.
The information in the Child Benefit
Agency records is enough for a
criminal to apply for loans, credit
cards and even mortgages in your
name – as well as other forms of
credit such as mobile telephone and
catalogue accounts. Your credit
report lists all your credit
commitments and recent applications
for credit, so you can instantly see
if someone has been trying to use
your ID and put a stop to problems
before they can develop.
3. Minimise the information you
post on social networking sites.
Organised gangs are now focusing on
ID fraud as a profit centre and they
know that many people give away
useful snippets that could be
passwords or key dates giving access
to your bank and card accounts. Edit
out the names of pets, mother’s
maiden name, where you went to
school and anything else you might
use as a password or PIN.
4. Watch out for hoax calls,
letters or e-mails. Taking
advantage of your distress in the
wake of a data breach, criminals may
call, e-mail or write pretending to
need further information in order to
protect you. In fact, they hope to
rip you off more thoroughly – so
don’t give away information to
people you do not know. Check with
organisations that might have a
genuine reason for contacting you
before you part with your data.
5. Ensure that your bank and credit
card account passwords do not relate
to the data that could be
compromised.
Many of us tend to use details such as children’s names and
memorable dates as passwords to
protect our bank and credit card
accounts. Fraudsters are likely to
make a good guess at these passwords
which will give them access to your
finances for further theft and much
more. Make sure you update your
passwords on a regular basis and use
unique words that do not relate to
data that could be compromised in a
data breach.
Credit monitoring is such an
effective method of protecting
yourself that it is recommended by
the Home Office and many responsible
organisations automatically offer it
to customers and clients who have
been affected by a data breach.
You can see your Experian credit
report for free CreditExpert
 with a 30-day
trial of CreditExpert, the UK’s
leading credit monitoring and
identity fraud protection service.
Then keep on checking regularly, to
give yourself peace of mind and make
sure that criminals haven’t taken
their time in impersonating you. |
