97% of Briton throw away their identity
How often have you thought that the rubbish you are throwing way in your bin might be of some use to somebody else? Not very often if new statistics released about the type of rubbish we throw away in our bins is to be believed!
Amazingly, 97% of UK households will throw away sensitive waste that contains some of our financial details. As such, anyone who wants to spend a few minutes looking through our rubbish bins the day before the rubbish men come and collect our rubbish is likely to find something they can use to steal our personal identity.
Top of the list of items that we are likely to throw away include: our credit card bills, store card statements, and even bank account statements. We also throw away reminder letters sent to us from our credit card companies to make a minimum payment. All of these contain very sensitive financial information that can easily be used to siphon off thousands of pounds from your UK credit cards and banks accounts.
But even when we are not throwing away sensitive financial information, we are still happy to throw away information that fraudsters can easily use to steal identity. Think of the last time you received an envelope with your name and address on it. Did you shred this, or did you simply put the envelope in your rubbish bin? More than likely you simply threw the envelope in the rubbish bin and in doing that simple task you just made the task of stealing your personal identity infinitely more easier.
Surprisingly, with the rise of Internet use and our awareness of having to be cautious with our personal identities on the Internet, not many of us are learning these lessons in the cyber-world and applying them to real life situations. Consequently, while we may be very sensitive about identity theft on the one hand, we are freely giving away this information with the other hand.
Worse, not only are we making the life of a fraudster easy, but fraudsters are well aware of the fact that we are actually helping them out. With Christmas just round the corner, November is the fraudsters most popular month to go trawling through out rubbish to find this sensitive financial information and steal our money just when we need it the most.
With the successful introduction of Chip and PIN technology on UK credit cards, personal identity theft is the biggest growth area in UK fraud at the moment, with an estimated one in ten Britons likely to be the victim of an identity theft this year. If you want to minimize your chances of joining a growing group of people who know what the real cost is of throwing away sensitive financial information, you need to change your habits and start to either keep your personal information personal or find a more secure way of disposing of this information. Unless, of course, you happen to be one of 3% of Britons who is already doing this.
Richard Smith
27th October 2006
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