Digital Safety
"We live in a hyper-connected world and technology has and will continue to change rapidly."
Data Privacy Matters
What can you do?
Approximately 15,000,000 US citizens fall victim to identity theft each year.
Approximately 200 accounts are breached (leaked) every second.
We live in a hyper-connected world and technology sure has changed rapidly, but how bad is it? Here’s a few examples…
- Our phones and watches have both wireless and interactive push-to-pay.
- Our identities are on 100s if not 1000s of websites.
- Our records are gambled with on the dark web like casino chips.
- Every free site or app you sign up for or play on sells your data for product resellers to increase profits.
- Your grocery club card is used to track the things people buy most so they can maximize their profits by ‘gently’ increasing the price (and minimize loss for unpopular items by pulling them from the lineup).
- Facebook (and other Meta owned apps) will identify you and a group of friends all on the same home network, then make similar recommendations for products because you’re all near each other (and probably buy the same things).
- Someone can open a line of credit in your name, reap the rewards, leave you with the debt and vanish – never to be held accountable.
Ok, the list could go on for miles, and we aren’t going to be able to tackle everything or today even.
Set a password, pin, fingerprint, or face ID for your smart phone – just don’t leave it without a lock screen of some kind. Since we all keep sensitive information on our phones, it makes sense to never leave it unlocked. Not having a lock also exposes your digital wallet.
Store your passwords in a vault (digital or actual vault if you’re old school) Some great options are 1Password, Bitwarden, Keeper, LastPass, Apple Keychain, etc.
Using a password vault allows you to have random passwords for all sites, apps, and services.
You’ll need to unfreeze them when you apply for credit, but that’s easier than recovering from theft. There are the standard 3 credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion), then there is Innovis and finally LexisNexis. LexisNexis has your entire consumer report (risk report).
The four major U.S. consumer credit reporting companies — Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion — are allowed under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to share your credit file information with creditors and insurers so those companies can send you “prescreened” or “preapproved” offers (the credit card offers that show up in your mailbox addressed to you specifically). The bureaus get paid for providing these lists. That site is the official, jointly-run opt-out portal where you can stop it for 5 years online, or permanently by mailing in a form.
Most credit card companies (like Discover) and credit bureaus (like Experian) offer free/paid credit monitoring. If you really want to go one step further, pay for something like LifeLock that is backed by a dollar amount of coverage.
Scrutinize every app you want to put on your phone or computer. Any app you download could potentially be malicious and many are. Malicious apps can capture passwords and steal information. Be sure to only install apps that are made by reputable companies or developers. As tedious as it sounds, reading their privacy policies as well as terms and conditions will reveal exactly what they are doing with your data.
Ignore spam callers, ignore spam text messages, random social media messages, and anyone claiming to be calling about a federal service, like Medicare. You have every right to request official documentation through snail mail or request to visit a branch office. It might be a good idea to register on the Do Not Call list (reputable companies honor this).
Set your social media accounts to private, where possible, and limit past posts. Choose who can see your previous posts on Facebook | Facebook Help Center
Take a good long look at your friends list and remove anyone you don’t know. Anyone you haven’t talked to in a very long time, reach out to them and see how they are. If you can’t communicate with them, do they need to be on your friends list seeing all the posts about your life and family?
Lastly, it’s important to know how the social media companies use your data:
No, your computer won’t tell you to call (insert some random Microsoft or support phone #) when/if your computer shows a screen saying it has a virus. Please don’t call that number, just ask someone you know for help or visit a local PC repair shop.
Review your bank statements on a regular basis. Any transactions that stand out deserve your investigative skills. If you are more concerned, increase the frequency which you are reviewing transactions posted to your account.
When not in use, lock your debit/credit cards.
Don’t carry unnecessary bank/credit cards or vital records (SSN, BirthCert) in your purse or wallet.
Don’t pay at the gas pump, pay inside and always go to busy gas stations. Gas pump skimmers are growing in popularity and no matter how safe you think it is to pay at the pump, it’s probably not. To the average person, the skimmers are difficult to identify, and attendants aren’t trained or required to look for them each day.
The same rule applies to any payment terminal that is exposed to public access like vending machines, parking booths, and more. Sometimes, using an outside payment terminal will be unavoidable.
In these scenarios, a safe form of payment to use is a credit card, not a debit card. With credit cards, the owner of the card has less liability and it isn’t directly tied to liquid cash.
The safest forms of payment, other than cash, are Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay which use tokenised transactions and not card numbers. Every transaction has a unique cryptogram.