Your identity has been stolen!

By ELLIOT GREENBLOTT
Capital One Data Breach compromises 100 Million” (New York Times; 7/29/19). “State Farm Suffers Data Breach” (Security Magazine; 8/8/19). “Mass General Reports Data Breach: 10,000 Patient Records” (Boston Globe; 8/22/19).

Data breaches have become a way of life. Between this writing on Aug. 25 and the time you are reading it, there have been more. An Aug. 20 article in Forbes Magazine reports that data breaches have exposed 4.1 billion records in the first six months of 2019. The population of the United States is 327,000,000. Conclusion — your personal information has been accessed illegally. Multiple times.

Since personal information is already accessible, there is little reason for you to be focused on the theft of your identity. Turn attention to detecting and blocking its use. This is true whether you are a computer user of not. While computer use may increase your level of potential risk, the data breaches occur on computer systems at companies, hospitals, and even government agencies that have no relationship to personal computer use.

Detecting and blocking the use of personal data is not a complicated matter and can be accomplished in a number of ways. The easiest, but costliest action is to enroll with a credit monitoring service such as Lifelock which is the most widely known provider. Similar programs are available from credit bureaus and financial service providers.

A second approach relates to the recent multi-million-dollar settlement between the Federal Government covering the 2017 Equifax data breach. Impacted individuals (most Americans) can register for up to 10 years of credit monitoring which was previously addressed in this column. (visit www.ftc.gov/equifax)

The third action plan requires more work: accessing copies of credit reports from the four credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, Innovis , TransUnion) to verify account activity and address errors. Free Copies of credit reports should be obtained from www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling (877) 322-8228. Personal action also means accessing bank, loan, credit and brokerage accounts on a frequent, regular basis to monitor activity. The previous recommendation requires that you have access to a computer and may not be practical for some readers. Also, do not use public access computers to do this.

A key step in denying criminals the use of your data in credit card and loan applications is to apply credit freezes to credit bureau reports It is a free action and the freeze can be lifted any time at no cost if necessary. Credit bureaus must be notified individually — (Equifax – (800) 525-6285 or www.equifax.com; Experian – (888) 397-3742 or www.experian,com; Innovis – (800) 540-2505 or www.innovis.com; TransUnion – (800) 689-7289 or www.tranunion.com).

With blocks created to limit the use of available data, limiting the availability of data you actually control is important. A few basic and easy steps as well as some not so easy changes in behavior can accomplish this. Keep personal and financial records in a locked location or password protected electronic files. Access a cross-cut or micro shredder and shred all documents with identifiable information before discarding. Be cautious using ATMs and know how to spot skimmer devices. Dramatically reduce the risk of losses by restricting information posted on social media; simple statements about an upcoming vacation become an invitation to a home break in. Resist the urge to complete surveys that arrive in unsolicited emails. These may be include offers of “FREE” gift cards which are seldom awarded. By completing the survey you provide personal information while opening yourself up to relentless marketers, spam and scammers who have your address and information. You can also remove your name from many marketing and solicitation lists by registering for the following: www.dmachoice.com for direct mail and email; www.optoutprescreen or (888)567-8688 for credit card offers; www.networkadvertising.org for computer “cookie” collecting; www.donotcall.gov or (888)382-1222 for phone calls.

Admit that stopping identity theft is not likely and that the onslaught of data breaches has compromised our personal information, We can, however, limit the information we willingly or unwillingly provide and actively disrupt ability of criminal to use our data. Questions, comments, concern? Contact me at [email protected].

Elliott Greenblott is a retired educator and the Vermont coordinator of the AARP Fraud Watch Network. He produces a feature CATV program, Mr. Scammer, distributed by GNAT-TV in Sunderland, Vermont.