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Keeping your Identity Safe

In the first six months of 2017 the UK fraud prevention organisation Cifas recorded a total of 89,000 new cases of identity theft. That’s 5% up on last year and means that identity theft now represents over 50% of all frauds reported.

Some 83% of identity fraud takes place online with loan applications, online shopping and telecoms heading the list. Interestingly, those within the 31 to 40 age bracket appeared to be most vulnerable, perhaps because this is an age group which appears to be happy to freely share personal details online.

Online security breaches also account for some of the information becoming available to criminals and whilst there is little that the average individual can do to prevent data leakage at a company level, there are some measures which everyone can take to help to keep their identity secure. These include:

· limiting the amount of personal information shared on social media sites

· using strong passwords which include a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols

· never using the same password for more than one account

· making sure that your own computer’s antivirus software is up-to-date

· shredding personal documents before disposing of them