Preventing Identity Theft
Part 1

Identity theft happens when your personal information is accessed by someone else without your explicit permission. Identity fraud occurs when criminals take that illegally obtained personal information and misuse it for their financial gain, by making fraudulent purchases or withdrawals, creating false accounts, or attempting to obtain services such as employment or healthcare. Here are some tips to highlight the most effective ways to fight identity fraud:

1. Keep personal data private. Do not provide sensitive financial information over the Internet or phone, including SSNs, passwords, PINs, or account numbers unless you initiated the contact to a verified and trusted institution.

2. Be vigilant. Monitor online financial accounts frequently and promptly review your other bank statements, credit card statements, and other bills.

3. Watch for shoulder-surfers. When entering a PIN number or a credit card number in an ATM machine, at a phone booth, or even on a computer at work, please be aware of who is nearby and make sure they are not peering over your shoulder to make a note of the keys you're pressing.

4. Shred everything. Shred personal records, bills, credit card statements, old credit cards, ATM receipts, medical statements and even junk mail solicitations before disposing of them in order to prevent "dumpster-diving".

5. Destroy digital data. When you sell, trade or otherwise dispose of a computer system, a hard drive, or even a recordable CD, DVD or backup tape, you need to take extra steps to ensure the data is completely destroyed. For CD, DVD or tape media, you should physically destroy it by breaking or shredding it before disposing of it.

Read Identity Theft, Part 2

For more information about identity theft regulations, please visit the Compliance and Regulations page.