Identity theft – stats, tips and how to protect your information

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Paper shredding in Ireland is a growing industry sector and for good reason. Approximately 7% of all adults within the US have their identities misused with substantial financial losses equating to approximately €3,000.

Close to 100 million additional people have their personal identifying information put at risk of identity theft each year when records from Government & Corporate databases are misplaced or stolen. It makes total sense to see secure, professional, and regulated destruction services being introduced and increased in Ireland. Services such as on site document shredding, clear out shredding, purge clear out services and off-site document shredding services are there for all Corporates and Governments to implement to protect your and my identity.

The level of sophistication used by organised crime to facilitate identity theft is ever increasing. Examples of such sophistication to name but a few are; tailored vishing scams, hacks of corporate and government databases to elaborate bots designed to hack your computer without leaving a trace.

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Image source: prince.org

The more historic/basic methods of identity theft are still out there with high numbers of people being a victim of. Simply pick pocketing wallets, going through your waste bins for sensitive paper, following waste trucks to sift through the waste material for paper and social engineering to trick innocent people into releasing personal information still work and work well.

Within this article, I will highlight some of the straightforward ways you can have your identity stolen with the hope that I can help some potentially targeted people in protecting their identity. There are also some tips to protect yourself when possible.

How you can be a victim

  1. People going through a pharmacy waste bin, unfortunately not all pharmacies avail of offsite document shredding services and their bins can contain significant amounts of personal information.
  2. People hacking into GP records, health records from a doctor’s office contain vital personal information. Many identity thieves will try to hack medical facilities electronic health records.
  3. Never use your place of birth as your security question, it is easy to find out this information.
  4. RFID scanner, many credit and debit cards are enabled for contactless payments. Yes, this is convenient but if a thief can get close enough to you he/she can make a convenient withdrawal at your expense.
  5. Using camera phones, always be careful when you are in a situation where you need to show personal details and information, a camera phone could be watching you.
  6. Accepting strange friend request on social media, if you do not know who they are, our advice does not accept.
  7. Leaving bills in your mailbox for pickup, always deliver your bill personally
  8. Putting cheques in the mail, if required always place additional paper within the envelope so the data cannot be seen under lights.
  9. Never changing your passwords, you should always change your password at least once a year.
  10. Failing to consider once off credit cards, it is a good idea if you are not a regular online shopper.
  11. Leaving receipts behind, you should always take your receipts with you even if it only shows the last four digits of your account number.

For more tips to stay safe please contact one of our team at info@securityinshredding.com

Ireland Businesses – Top Six threats to Data Privacy

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All Businesses in operation in Limerick, Cork, Dublin, Galway and across Ireland will be aware of Data Breaches and the risks associated with them. A data breach can come in the form of a paper breach when failing to implement confidential document destruction and a digital breach when failing to have appropriate security procedures in place. The knock on negativity that an Organisation faces affects client relationships in addition to damaging your Company image.

In many cases due to DATA PROTECTION LAW your Organisation may be legally responsible to your customers. In this article I will go through my top six threats to Data Privacy for Organisations.

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Top SixThreats;

  1. Lack of Data Protocols

In many data breach cases it is found that there was a failure of the Organisation to have even the most basic protocols in place to minimise the loss of customer and employee data. Examples have been; a failure to have confidential paper stored in a secure location when not in use and waste paper material being destroyed through an onsite document shredding facility.

  1. Restricted access to information

A regular mistake by Organisations today both Public and Private is to restrict access to confidential information for employees. A simple “need to know” procedure is a great step in achieving data security.

  1. Failing client expectations

Within many Organisations there seems to be a free for all information sharing tendency. However, in today’s competitive environment business clients and public clients to given Organisations expect to have their information maintained securely. Various staff members with varying staff functions are not required to know one another data details. A simple contract inclusion at employment stage would reduce and minimise this non-required cross function data sharing tendency.

  1. Extended information gathering & sharing

There is an increasing trend in information gathering through online forms and “opt out” functions. This information may be shared among Organisations with no accurate business case to justify such sharing.

  1. Increases in technology

This point covers a multitude of technologies but I will mention two different kinds;

  1. Confidential document shredding – reconstruction technologies
  2. Online digital data technologies that part individuals from their personal information for fraudulent use.
  1. Lack of awareness

There is a concerning level ignorance or lack of knowledge from a Data Controller perspective and general public perspective when dealing with sensitive data.

Data Controllers may lack a degree of awareness of their data protection obligations, such examples can be failing to complete a clear out shredding process at the end of each calendar year or failing to have a confidential document destruction process in place for daily generated materials.

For more information on data privacy Email us at info@securityinshredding.com 

The Data Protection Commissioner phone no: +353 57 868 4800

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