How to protect your financial identity and other important information

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Identity is the legal, financial, and social record of one's existence on Earth. Identity is at the core of what ties an individual to his or her actions, beliefs, transactions, whereabouts, finances and property. Naturally, protecting identity is a concern among people because of its connective value to individuals' security of important information in addition to protecting those individuals from the consequences of identity theft that can take years to remedy.

Protecting privacy involves being aware of what aspects of identity are important as opposed to what aspects of identity are not. For example, the color of one's favorite pair of socks is generally not an aspect of identity that needs protection unless that color is part of a security clearance question for a bank account or something of value.

Typically, the most important aspects of identity involve financial information, confidential professional data, personal information relating to privacy such as medical or legal information that is protected by law. While these previous areas are often worth protecting, they may not include the full compendium of identity information one may wish to protect. The remainder of this article will outline some of the ways to protect identity and confidential personal information relating to but not limited to identity.

• Financial information

Financial information is an important part of one's identity is a protected in part by Federal legislation governing how corporations use and inform clients on matters relating to privacy of financial information. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act asserts corporations must disclose privacy policies regarding consumer information. However, this does not mean the privacy policies themselves may be favorable to the consumer. For this reason it is important to read how and why personal financial information will be used to determine it such use is personally acceptable.

As with medical information, using caution and reserve when releasing information to marketing companies, employers, and other interested parties is a good protective measure. Release only information that is required by law in order to receive a service, complete an application etc. Using a privacy conscious bank such as a Swiss bank account and cash instead of credit cards also protects one's information from being disclosed indiscriminately to third parties and from having a digital record of transactions being recorded.

Keeping up to date on all account information and credit reports can also alert one to fraudulent activity and as an added measure one can choose to freeze one's credit information from marketers by calling 1-888-OPT-OUT. Other methods of reducing the spread of one's personal information among marketers is to contact the American Marketing Association and completing the purge information forms available to consumers. These purge forms, once processed remove that information from marketing lists for up to 5 years.

• Medical information

Medical information can become less private under a number of conditions including the signing of waivers prior to medical treatment, when submitting claims to a health insurance provider, and when completing questionnaires whether they be commercial, employment or medically orientated.

Exercising caution when releasing personal medical information is good measure i.e. only release information that is absolutely necessary in order receive service and avoid utilizing insurance companies when attempting to prevent the release of information regarding a health related concern.

Additionally, becoming familiar with the rights and regulations established by the updated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) 2003 ,can assist one in determining his or her rights in regard to privacy of medical information. Another resource for learning about protecting individual identity is the The American Civil Liberties Union. This organization is concerned and actively involved with the protection of and advocacy of individual privacy.

• Personal and business correspondence

In the daily course of events it is not uncommon to receive and send many documents containing information containing addresses, social security numbers, and other private information. Instead of disposing of old files with personal information in the garbage, it is a protective measure to shred this information, preferably with a cross cut shredder before disposal. The reason for this is that potential identity thieves or other curious individuals may physically search through trash for such information.

Additional methods to protect personal information are to utilize post office boxes to prevent one's address information from being widely known, in addition to securing one's residence or workplace with security features such as surveillance cameras, alarm systems, protective personnel and/or K9's. Safety deposit boxes and/or safes may be utilized for safe keeping of valuable assets and important legal documents. 

If one is very protective of one's identity, establishing residency on an offshore Island for more than 6 months of the year to avoid having to disclose tax, and other legally required information associated with full time residency within the United States or other highly regulated country may be possible.

• Computer files and drive storage information

Computer files can accumulate a great deal of personal and identity related information over time because of the computers role as a storage device, communications portal, and business facilitator. Computers are hubs for identity information and consequently protecting such information is of relevance.

A number of steps can be taken to protect confidentiality of files, communications, and transaction information. Making use of password protection, encryption options of sensitive files, firewalls and spy-ware software can all assist in preventing identity loss in addition to using caution when opening unknown or suspicious emails.

When files are no longer of use or expired, completely deleting them from a hard drive may be advisable. Files can often remain accessible even after deletion in which case the hard drive memory must be more thoroughly erased through substantial reformatting. Operating software such as Windows allows hard drives to be reformatted.

• Online information

When on the internet, whether it be transmittal of files, recording of information online or searching the internet, information may be vulnerable to interception and viewing from unknown third parties in addition to criminal data mining enterprises. For example, there are many scams online that attempt to solicit personal information such as bank account information, credit card information and the like via bait such as false prizes, phony financial assistance requests from money launderers, and false websites that appear to be trusted websites seeking password information when in fact, they are not.

To protect information online one may also send and receive encrypted files that are stored on a hard drive via encryption software, periodically erase computer caches, consoles, auto fill memory and cookies from one's computer and use an anonymous proxy browser or proxy server software. Firewalls, virus protection software and background knowledge of the website information is transmitted to can all be helpful in protecting identity and sensitive information about one's identity.

The safest way to protect one's identity is to have no identity at all which means eliminating all traces of one's existence from the World. In most cases this is either impractical, very difficult or not necessary to protect one's identity from common concerns such as theft, breach of privacy, and illegal supposition of identity related information. Through utilizing the tips presented in the article one may become more aware of the steps one might take to better protect one's identity.