September Y2K
Guarding Against
Identity Theft
By Robert Heady
Are you banking online, getting freebies or entering contests on the Web? Are you giving out your Social Security number to any electronic outfit that asks for it?
If so, don’t be surprised if you get ripped off.
No matter how many “experts” assure you they’ve whipped the privacy problem on the Internet, your identity can still be stolen even with precautions taken with new technology.
Online fraud is the most burning issue in the country right now and there’s no solution in sight.
• Half of all credit card fraud is traceable to the Internet, according to surveys.
• Thefts of Social Security numbers have soared to more than 500,000 a year.
• The volume of calls to the Federal Trade Commission’s identity theft hot line doubled from March to August of this year.
• In a special test of the government’s advanced “scrambling code,” it took a high-tech team less than three days to unlock a secret message by running 88 billion possible combinations every second for 56 straight hours.
Further more, a survey of 2,200 Internet computing systems nation-wide showed that 66 percent had potential security vulnerabilities.
Your privacy protection is peanuts compared with the tech revolution. Even the former U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John M. Shalikashvili, had his Social Security number stolen. It gets worse for the little guy.
When Edward H., a software engineer, recently went to open his first account at First Union Bank in South Florida, the bank in effect said, “Sorry, there’s someone else in our database with the same name and Social Security number.”
Is there a quick fix to this scary mess?
Some consumer-minded congressmen and women want to pass new privacy laws protecting the public but the financial industry is fighting back, saying it will police itself, which is a joke. Those same legislators just launched a Privacy Commission to investigate the situation but they admit it will be 18 months before they can come up with recommendations.
Meanwhile, millions of consumers have made Faustian bargains with Internet peddlers by giving away personal data about themselves when they buy merchandise, get freebies or enter cash contests.
Other dubious outfits claim that they will “investigate anyone, anywhere” for you for a fee—as they collect your private data in the process.
If there’s no way of protecting the rest of your personal life, what can you do? Use these tips, starting today:
• On a Web site, look for tiny symbols at the bottom of the screen—a locked padlock or a key—indicating that the site uses secure technology to protect vital data such as a credit card number.
• Read the site’s “Privacy Policy” to learn what information it is gathering from you, whether it sells it to other companies and how you can prevent your information from being sold or shared. Can you “opt out” by telling them that they can’t sell your information or “opt in” by requiring your permission to do so? Do not deal with a site if it does not reveal its privacy policy.
• Do not transmit your Social Security number, bank account number or password through e-mail unless the information is encrypted. Never divulge your Social Security number to anyone except your employer, bank or the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies. No one else has a legal right to know the number.
• Check your credit report at least once a year with all three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion).
• Avoid easy-to-guess passwords. Change your password periodically.
• Check your monthly banking statement for strange charges.
Monitor your “cookies”—hidden text files that shadow your movements on the computer and create a profile of where you go on the Internet. To see how cookies work, visit Privacy.net at www.privacy.net, a consumer protection site. For how to delete cookies, see www.cookiecentral.com on the Web.
• Report any identity theft to the FTC hotline at (877) ID-THEFT and click onto www.consumer.gov/idtheft.
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