People across the globe are experiencing a relentless barrage of attacks impacting their personal privacy and security. If you have never received a notice in the mail stating that your personal information has been compromised, consider yourself one of the lucky few. Protecting against data breaches, identity theft, and even physical threats against you or your family should be a top priority for everyone. While no one can completely escape these threats, this web site puts forth steps you can take to reduce the likelihood of them happening to you. Sorted by category, the content below is routinely updated so check back often. It's a dangerous world out there, follow these steps and don't become the next victim!

 

Protect Your Personal Info

 

Freeze Your Accounts

Credit

Freezing your credit blocks access to your credit, protecting you against a cybercriminal opening fraudulent accounts. A freeze has to be up individually at all five credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, Innovis, LexisNexis, and TransUnion. A freeze does not impact your current lines of credit and does not affect your credit score.

 

Bank Accounts

Like your credit you should freeze your bank accounts as well through ChexSystems. This is the equivalent of a credit freeze but makes it more difficult for an identity thief to open a checking or savings account in your name.

 

Social Security Number

Place a lock on your Social Security Number through E-Verify, a government service that allows employers to confirm a job applicant's employment eligibility. You can temporarily unlock your SSN if an employer needs to verify your employment.

 

Monitor Your Accounts

Credit Report

Review a copy of your credit report once a year by using the free government service. Regular check-ups of your credit report will make you aware of what lenders see as well as an opportunity for you to detect inaccurate or incomplete information.

 

Consumer Report

See what information about you is maintained at LexisNexis by requesting a Consumer Disclosure Report. The report includes items such as real estate transaction and ownership data, lien, judgment, and bankruptcy records, professional license information, and historical addresses.

 

Remove Yourself from the Internet

Your personal information is all over the Internet. Name, address, phone number, and birthdate can all be easily found. The sites listed below are some of the biggest information aggregators. If you remove your information from these sites (by opting out), you will notice a gradual reduction in the amount of information that can be found on you from searching the Internet.

 

Acxiom | BeenVerified | InfoTracer | Intelius | LexisNexis | LexisNexis Marketing | MyLife | Radaris | Spokeo | TruePeopleSearch | Whitepages

 

Maintain Your Privacy

There are numerous ways to maintain your privacy in both the real world and the digital world. Don't ever feel compelled to give out your information just because someone asks. If you must, though, consider giving out alternate information that is more difficult to trace back to you.

 

Email

Apple Hide My Email is a service that allows you to create legitimate, secondary emails that are tied to your main Apple account, but keeps details of your main account private. Proton is a free email services based in Switzerland that provides complete privacy through end-to-end encryption and strict Swiss privacy laws.

 

Web Browsing

Out of the box Firefox blocks most tracking cookies companies use to gather your personal information.

 

Search

DuckDuckGo provides private, anonymous, and quality search results without being tracked.

 

Phone

For your phone, use a service from Google Voice, Hushed or MySudo to create a working phone number that can't be tied back to you.

 

Messaging

Consider use Apple Messenger with other Apple users. If you or the other person doesn't use Apple, then consider using Signal. The service keeps your text messages secure and only the person you are communicating with can see them, not even Signal.

 

Home Address

For your home address, consider using a PO Box. Alternatively, you can also use the address of a local landmark, like a hotel, when you're forced to give an address even though it's not necessary.