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Identity theft is as big a problem now as it has ever been. The reason is partly because of improvements in the technology used by fraudsters, but is more so due to the fact that we freely give out our personal details to so many people and businesses.

The good news is that there are some things that you can do to help protect yourself against this awful eventuality. The more you can do to prevent this kind of theft, the more you can avoid the considerable heartache it can cause.

Firstly, you should only give out your personal details to reputable companies, which means companies that you have heard of before, and which are well-established. Such companies will have appropriate safeguards in place to protect your data, which lesser companies will not have.

Before dealing with any company online, find out exactly how they use your information. Also, make sure that the website has the lock symbol, indicating that their information gathering page is secure.

You should look to put passwords on as many of your accounts as possible, ensuring that they can not easily be figured out (i.e. dates of births, children’s names, etc.) and that you do not use always use the same password. By doing so, even if your details are used fraudulently, the amount of use that they will be to others will be severely limited.

Keep in mind too that your security can also be breached offline. At the very least, make sure you shred any documents with personal information on them before you throw them out, as picking through garbage is one of the most common methods of discovering personal information.

Then, never carry all of your identifiers (passport, driving license, work pass etc.) at once, and minimize the number of credit cards you carry to just what you will need.  You can also keep abreast of your credit information by getting regular credit reports from all of the major agencies.

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Tags: business, finance, fraud, home insurance, identity theft, legal, society