Mar 16 2007
Identity Theft and Copy Machines
I’m big on protecting my privacy and my personal information. I realized the importance of keeping my Social Security number private years before identity theft was mentioned.
People thought I was paranoid. Do I shred documents? You betcha.
Do I shred using a crosscut shredder, which makes tinier pieces? Of course.
Do I rip all personal information and shred it before putting it in my garbage? Yup.
Do I worry that people might go through my garbage and based on the catalogs, prospectuses, and occasional magazine they find create a composite of who I am?
That was a rhetorical question.
If you looked through my garbage you’d see a careful consumer (Consumer Reports), with maybe some money (Kiplinger’s), who wears LL Bean (catalogs), runs (running shoe catalogs), and who may have a mortgage based on all the credit card applications (name torn out) and offers to refinance.
You might think that the person who created the garbage either ate out a lot or didn’t each much and perhaps subsisted on wine, coffee and protein bars.
How do you think I felt when I saw at article on Yahoo’s Tech section warning about how copiers can provide another method of identity theft?
Uh-oh! One more thing to worry about.
The Yahoo article links to Photocopiers: The newest ID theft threat by Computer World:
“At issue are the hard drives embedded in most copiers and intelligent printers manufactured in the past five years. Data is stored on the drive before a document is copied or printed; unless security provisions are in place, the data is stored unencrypted and remains there until the drive is full and new data overwrites old.”
Since most of us are preparing are taxes and probably making copies, this is something to be leery of.
Hahah well I have got one up on you. I used to feed all of my documents to my gerbil, he would then proceed to chew the papers into itty bitty peices, then use them for his restroom. I feel sorry for anyone who would try to put that back together >
Gerbils! I wanted a gerbil as a kid but they were illegal in my state. I had hamsters.
You took recycling to a new level.
Oh brother! Now we have to worry about COPIERS too?? Oy!
Gulp! I didn’t know about copiers, either! When will it end?!!
I try not to think about how much information is probably tracked and stored in all sorts of ways – from surveillance cameras to cell phones to Internet sites to PCs to auto computers to store’s club cards.