DATA THEFT PREVENTION

Your personal private data is more valuable than your house or car, but do you protect your data as well as you guard your keychain? Your personal records are the keys that a criminal needs to steal your identity and you should take basic steps to protect your files.

We've listed some issues to be aware of below, and provided some ideas on how to more carefully protect your personal data.

If you have questions about how to remove files and personal data from different kinds of storage media, please call us for more information:

Places Your Personal Data Might Be Stored:

• On your home or work computer:
  
  When you delete anything from your computer, an email, a photo, a document, a scanned copy of your drivers license(!), the data remains on the hard drive until something else is written over it. There is no way to predict how long the data may stay on the drive; in some case we have recovered files containing personal information that were deleted ten years earlier!
  
  
• On a backup drive, a USB stick, or CDs/DVDs:
  
  Personal data backed up on external hard drives and USB sticks will remain on the drive until it is overwritten just like a regular hard drive inside a desktop or laptop. Data backed up on a CD or DVD cannot be overwritten (unless the disc is re-writable), and extra care should be taken to destroy old copies, since they are more likely to be lost or just thrown away.
  
  
• On a fax machine or copier:
  
  Recent tests have shown that some copiers and fax machines can store images of documents to their internal hard drive. In some cases, these documents can be retrieved intact years after the copy or fax was made. If you have faxed copies of your tax returns or mortgage papers somewhere, they could remain on the hard drive long after the machine has been resold or disposed of.
  
  
• On a cell phone or PDA:
  
  As cell phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants aka Blackberries, etc.) become more powerful, many users store personal data on them. When you upgrade to a new phone, you should be sure that any personal files are purged from the old phone before it is donated or recycled.

Making Sure Your Private Files Are Safe:

• Be aware of where you have stored personal data:
  
  While having multiple copies of vital data is a good idea, having so many copies you lose track of one is not. Once you no longer need a copy of something that could potentially be used for identity theft, make sure the data is deleted in such a way that it cannot be retrieved.
  
  
• Consider protecting personal files with passwords:
  
  Both Apple and Microsoft operating systems have the ability to protect files with passwords. Anything you can do to make your data more difficult for a casual user to access will help keep your identity safe.
  
  
• Use caution when copying or faxing personal data:
  
  Before using a copier or fax machine, check to see if the machine is set to save documents. In a commercial copy center, ask a staff member to check the machine settings; in your company offices, check the manual for the machine, or ask the folks responsible for maintaining the machine to verify that documents are not being stored on the units hard drive.
  
  

Toll Free: 1-866-804-1914