What are some simple ways to protect your Identity?

In some ways it is obvious, Identity theft is more likely to occur if you make it easy for someone to take and use your identity information.

Here are a few things you can do to help prevent that happening.

1. If you are asked for your Identity information, ask why they are asking for it and what they will do with it.

2. Keep documents that are used to establish your identity (e.g. Birth Certificates or Passports) in a very safe place. Ideally in a physical safe if you have one.

3. Do not write down PIN Numbers or passwords. If you cannot remember them all then make use of software like myINFOSAFE to store then and keep them safe but accessible.

4. Identity crime does not always result from information that is stolen, but from information that you publish on the internet. It is best not to publish information like your birth date on the internet. Often organisations will user date of birth as one of the verification questions when identifying you and if people can find this out they can easily impersonate you).

5. Be suspicious of any unexpected events (Letters from Creditors, bank transactions you cannot remember making) that could be a result of identity crime.

6. If you have sensitive information on your mobile phone, keep it password protected. It can be inconvenient we know but there is often a significant amount of information on phones that help people steal your identity.

7. Remove all personal information from personal computers before you dispose of them.

8. Make sure you properly dispose (shred or burn) of bank statements, electricity bills, and any piece of correspondence with your name or address on it. These documents should never be put in public recycling bins. Consider getting your statements provided online - it is good for you and the environment as well.

9. Passwords are often sent to you via email when you sign up for new services. Go to your email and search all folders, including your deleted items, for the word “Password”. Check all the emails that are returned and make sure you transfer all the information into myINFOSAFE, or a similar digital safe, to ensure no one with access to your PC could find your passwords.

10. If you believe you are the victim of identity crime, contact the police.

We will be publishing a free guide to preventing Identity theft on our website soon. If you have any other ideas or thoughts that we should include then please let us know.

Privacy of Personal Information

How private is information you post on the internet? Is it more secure than if you store that information on your PC?

The reality is that information can be very secure or very insecure on both platforms.
In regards to the Web, I found a helpful view in David Siegel's book "PULL". He states that there are three basic levels to the Web and area findable by public search engines like Google and Bing.

The Public Web which we normally see when searching and browsing for information online.
The Deep Web which includes large data repositories that public search engines usually do not see. E.g. Craigslist, Grainger etc.
The Private Web which we can only get access to if we qualify or have access rights. E.g. Corporate intranets or subscription based services. Again, this information is not searchable by public search engines.

So your data is more secure in the private web than the public web, but, in all these systems there are people that have the ability to access your information if they wish to. There is always a systems administrator or similar with super admin rights to each database and can just about always get to see what data is stored anywhere.
On your PC you may think your data is safe, but there are two main ways that people can gain access to information on your PC.

Remotely - If your PC is connected to the internet, even if you have firewall protection or security software, there are ways that people can gain access to your PC and search your information.
Physically - If someone gains physical access to your PC, and even if your PC is password protected, people who know how can access your PC and search your information. This can also be that case if they get hold of any of your back up devices for your PC.

On either platform the best way to ensure that your data is not compromised is to have it encrypted with a strong cryptographic key that is kept confidential (and separated from any systems administrator). This way, even if information is found it cannot be read or understood as all the information is encoded using this key.

The cracking of a strong encryption key of about 192 or 256 bits is considered infeasible.

So, be careful what you do with your information. If you want it shared then that is fine. If you want it safe and protected, encrypt it – end of story.

Linkability?

So you post some information on your website, your blog, or post some pictures on the internet for friends to see. What happens to it then? Can this information be copied, re-used, modified? Yes it can. This is less than ideal as you soon lose control of your information and it is off into cyberspace somewhere for who knows what purpose.

Some would say this is no different to talking to someone and them talking to someone else and soon you do not know who is talking about you. This is OK if it is about things you are happy for people to talk about, in fact this can often be beneficial. But what if you share something personal with someone in confidence and others get to know. You feel your confidence and trust in that person has been breached and this is not OK.

How can we set up similar confidence rules for information we share on the internet to protect ourselves from the openness of the internet when we need it?

Some would say that if you do not want your personal information spread on the internet, then do not put it up there. That may be right sometimes (e.g. just do not put those pictures from the office party up on Facebook). Others will say, make sure you submit such information in password protected areas. But what is stopping other members copying that info and distributing it outside of the protected area.

There are times you need to share information on a confidential matter and discuss it with people you trust. Due to geographical location or the need for input from multiple people, the internet is often the best mechanism in which to do this.

So, in the mean time, you are left with using a search engine to see what is being said about you on the internet and how information about you is being treated, then trying to correct it. Perhaps what we need is some mechanism to link (Linkability?) us to our information or protect sensitive information we do post or submit to the internet. Is there such a mechanism?

Look forward to learning about what views people have in this regard and what initiatives are underway to move us forward in this area.