Consumer Protection

• Don't give out personal information on the phone, through the mail or over the Internet unless you've initiated the contact or are sure you know whom you're dealing with.
• Don't carry your Social Security card with you; leave it in a secure place. Carry only the identification and credit and debit cards that you need.
• Don't put your address, phone number, or drivers license number on credit card sales receipts.
• Social Security numbers or phone numbers should not be put on your checks.
• Shred your charge receipts, copies of credit applications, insurance forms, physician statements, checks and bank statements, expired charge cards that you're discarding, and credit offers you get in the mail.
• Secure your credit card, bank, and phone accounts with passwords. Avoid using easily available information like birth date, the last four digits of your SSN, or your phone number. When opening new accounts, you may find that many businesses still have a line on their applications for your mother's maiden name. Use a password instead.
• Secure personal information in your home, particularly if you have roommates or hire outside help.
• Promptly remove mail from your mailbox. If you're planning to be away from home and can't pick up your mail, call the U.S. Postal Service at 1-800-275-8777 to request a vacation hold.
• Ask about information security procedures in your workplace. Find out who has access to your personal information and verify that records are kept in a secure location. Ask about the disposal procedures for those records as well.
• Before revealing any personally identifying information (for example, on an application), find out how it will be used and secured, and whether it will be shared with others. Ask if you have a choice about the use of your information. Can you choose to have it kept confidential?

Social Media

1. Use caution when you click links that you receive in emails or messages from your friends. Hackers pretend to send out messages that look like legitimate companies but actually are fake.
2. Be careful what you post about yourself. A common way that hackers break into online accounts is by using the "Forgot your Password?" link on the login page. To break into your account, they search for the answers to your security questions, such as your birthday, home town, high school, or mother's middle name. If the site allows, make up your own password questions, and don't draw them from material anyone could find with a quick search.
3. Don't trust that a message is really from who it says it's from. Hackers can break into accounts and send messages that look like they're from your friends, but aren't. If you suspect that a message is fraudulent, use an alternate method to contact your friend to find out. This includes invitations to join new social networks.
4. To avoid giving away email addresses of your friends, do not allow social networking services to scan your email address book. When you join a new social network, you might receive an offer to enter your email address and password to find out if your contacts are on the network. The site might use this information to send email messages to everyone in your contact list or even everyone you've ever sent an email message to with that email address. Social networking sites should explain that they're going to do this, but some do not.
5. Type the address of your social networking site directly into your browser or use your personal bookmarks. If you click a link to your site through email or another website, you might be entering your account name and password into a fake site where your personal information could be stolen.
6. Be selective about who you accept as a friend on a social network. Identity thieves might create fake profiles in order to get information from you.
7. Choose your social network carefully. Evaluate the site that you plan to use and make sure you understand the privacy policy. Find out if the site monitors content that people post. You will be providing personal information to this website, so use the same criteria that you would to select a site where you enter your credit card.
8. Assume that everything you put on a social networking site is permanent. Even if you can delete your account, anyone on the Internet can easily print photos or text or save images and videos to a computer.
9. Be careful about installing extras on your site. Many social networking sites allow you to download third-party applications that let you do more with your personal page. Criminals sometimes use these applications to steal your personal information. To download and use third-party applications safely, take the same safety precautions that you take with any other program or file you download from the web.
10. Think twice before you use social networking sites at work.
11. Talk to your kids about social networking. If you're a parent of children who use social networking sites, see How to help your kids use social websites more safely.

Portable Devices

Check your credit report