It is important for all of us to do what we can to keep our personal information private. However, how much control do you have over protecting personal information? Not as much as you may think. We have mentioned several times on this website that even though you may do all you can to shred personal documents you no longer need, shred or destroy credit card receipts, avoid shopping online, only give your social security number out when necessary, opt out of pre-approved credit card offers and more, you are still not thoroughly protecting personal information. Why? Those who already have your social security number on file put you at high risk, especially if they store it on a computer for easy access. Employees can steal and use it and computer hackers can as shown in the following incident.

Recently, the state education department released the news that the names, social security number, addresses and birthdates of over 18,000 Nashville students was placed on a web server that made the data available via the internet for several months (December 2008 – March 2009). This was not a malicious attack, but rather the information was posted in error by a privately contracted group.

“We take full responsibility for this incident and we formally express our sincere apology to the students and parents of Metro Nashville Public Schools,” said Stephen Skinner, the principal for the company.

Who would have thought that thousands of Nashville parents would need to worry about protecting the precious identity of their children. Taken additional steps to be sure that you are alerted to any fraudulent activity being conducted under your social security number will help bring peace of mind.

Lifelock identity theft protection services can help and they do accept enrollments for children as well. Enroll using the code “DEFENSE” to receive their deepest discount.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 6:43 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.