When I ask the question, “What are you doing to protect your identity from identity thieves?”, believe it or not, I still occasionally get the answer, “I shred my documents” – duh, duh, and duh! If this is your response, please, I implore you to get your head out of the sand! With a mind boggling 11 million records stolen last year, do you really think shredding your documents alone, is an effective measure? Did you ever go to high school? College? Physician? Hospital? Are you a veteran? How about this one – have you, or has any one else (i.e. employer, government agency, community agency, health care facility, etc.) ever made a copy of any of your personal information? A driver’s license perhaps, or maybe you made a copy of your income tax returns using the copy machine at work? Did you know that if you have been a victim of domestic violence in recent years in Buffalo, NY that your private, personal information was shipped outside of New York, for anyone to see? Not only are you a victim of DV, you may very likely become an Identity Theft statistic, thanks to the BPD.
Watch this CBS news clip, especially if you live in Buffalo or Erie County, NY. Click on the link below (or copy/paste) and let me know if you are as outraged as I.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n&tag=related;photovideo
If this news doesn’t convince you that you need protection, nothing will. I’m not talking about your bank giving you free monitoring on your bank or credit card accounts either. That’s not protection.
UPDATE – here is a link to an article about Affinity Health Plan (mentioned in the CBS news report) with 400,000+ records breached
http://www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/privacy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224600001
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