Freezing your credit prevents criminals from opening new loans or credit cards in your name, even if they have your personal information. It’s free, doesn’t impact your credit score or existing accounts, and can be temporarily lifted anytime you need to apply for credit yourself. A freeze has to be established individually through each bureau.

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Major Credit Bureaus: Equifax, Experian, Innovis, TransUnion

Other Bureaus: ChexSystems, LexisNexis

Even after freezing your credit, it’s important to regularly review your credit report to identify fraudulent accounts, unauthorized inquiries, or inaccuracies before they cause lasting harm. Early detection enables you to respond quickly, reducing financial loss and protecting your credit health. You can obtain a free copy of your credit report once a year; however, this service does not include access to your credit scores.

Read More: Annual Credit Report

Your LexisNexis Consumer Disclosure Report contains detailed personal, financial, and identity data that is often used to verify you behind the scenes. Monitoring this report can reveal incorrect or suspicious information that could be used for identity theft or denied services, making it an important but often overlooked part of personal security.

Read More: LexisNexis Consumer Disclosure Report

Locking your Social Security number helps prevent identity thieves from using it to file fraudulent tax returns, claim benefits, or open new accounts. While it won’t stop all misuse, it significantly reduces the risk of your SSN being exploited without your knowledge. E-Verify also allows employers to confirm a job applicant's employment eligibility. You can temporarily unlock your SSN if an employer needs to verify your employment.

Read More: E-Verify

Your personal information is all over the Internet. Name, address, phone number, and birthdate can all be easily found. The sites listed above 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.

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Opt-out from key data brokers:

Acxiom, BeenVerified, InfoTracer, LexisNexis, LexisNexis Marketing, MyLife, PeopeConnect, Radaris, Spokeo, TruePeopleSearch, Whitepages