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With identity theft on the rise, are you concerned about the safety of your personal data?

Steve Ballmer the former CEO of Microsoft said,“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.” And we couldn’t agree more.  We use technology daily to monitor our clients’ investment accounts, manage their financial plans, facilitate transfers, and most importantly empower our clients to make decisions related to their finances that will help them reach their goals.

Identity TheftThe tremendous growth in technology has also brought new obstacles like the recent data breaches at Home Depot, Target, and Anthem. For the time being, data breaches may be the new reality.  It isn’t likely that you’ll be able to, or want to, stop or limit your use of technology. But you should understand how to protect yourself in the event you are affected.

Regarding the Anthem breach, experts say that this data breach is more severe than earlier breaches, e.g.  Target and Home Depot.  In this case, attackers obtained personal information from current and former Anthem members such as names, birthdays, social security numbers, addresses — everything one would need to open accounts, credit cards, or make purchases in your name.  Note:  Anthem is saying that no medical or credit card information was obtained.

Anthem plans to notify anyone who had information compromised directly and will provide free credit monitoring services for two years.  If you are a current or former Anthem member, watch for this notification and consider accepting the credit monitoring offer.  The goal of credit monitoring is to alert you if an account has been opened in your name.

In addition, you can put a fraud alert on file with any of the credit bureaus, which will encourage creditors to verify applicant’s identity before approving applications, but does not block new accounts from being opened and is often ignored by creditors.

However, putting a “security freeze” on your credit report would prohibit the credit reporting agency from releasing credit reports or any information from the report without authorization from you.  You would have to “thaw” your credit report before the information is given to potential lenders.

Here’s how it works:  you contact each of the 3 main credit bureaus and direct them to freeze your credit reports so that no new applications for credit can be obtained until your report is “thawed”.  In addition to having the added step of thawing your report anytime credit is obtained, there is a fee to both “freeze” and “thaw” your reports and so you should consider the cost and the frequency that you will need to apply for credit before moving forward.  Note:  You must “freeze” your report with all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion).

If you are a resident of the state of Wisconsin, Equifax charges $10 to put the “freeze” on your report and $10 to “thaw” your report temporarily or permanently.  **Experian and TransUnion may have different fees.

Residents of the state of Wisconsin may also freeze the credit reports of their minor children, which may be appropriate if your child’s data was obtained in the Anthem breach.

Here are links to the three credit bureaus if you want to learn more about applying a credit freeze:

Equifax:  https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp

TransUnion: Credit Freeze | Freeze My Credit | TransUnion | TransUnion

Experian:  https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

– Andrea


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