Identity Theft Tips

Data Privacy Day

In This Article
  • Data Privacy Day
  • Data Privacy hot topics
  • How to protect yourself

January 28th, 2011 marks the third annual Data Privacy Day, an annual celebration to raise awareness about information privacy and protection. This event is an opportunity for people from all circles to come together to discuss issues that impact us all.

As we are empowered by today’s technologies, we need to understand the importance of securing and protecting our personal information online. Throughout the day, security experts, academics and business leaders will promote methods for keeping your personal information more secure and out of the wrong hands.

Some Data Privacy Day hot topics are:

Medical Privacy: With the large-scale digitalization and sharing of the nation's medical and health insurance records, the privacy of your medical information is clearly a serious matter. Here are some things to consider:

  • You have the right to ask your doctors' offices with whom they have shared your medical records
  • Doctors' offices are often crowded, so be wary of people sitting near you who are trying to see the information you write on your patient forms
  • You can ask your doctors questions about the protections they have in place for their records storage system

Social Networking: While enjoyable, these sites can lead to serious security threats. When using social networking sites:

  • Only post information you are comfortable with others seeing and knowing about you; don't post your Social Security number or address for example
  • Don't give out personal information while chatting online or click on links in emails from senders you don’t know
  • Remember that once you post information online, you can’t take it back; older versions exist on other people's computers

Mobile Phones: To lessen the threat of potential fraud and security risks when using mobile data networks:

  • Turn off location sharing capabilities on social networking sites
  • Look into disabling "geotags," which embed location information in photos taken on your smartphone
  • Use the ProtectMyID iPhone App to view your Alerts on the go

As a company that safeguards and protects personal and financial information, ProtectMyID™ from Experian is a proud advocate of Data Privacy Day. To learn more and to take part in the conversation, go to www.dataprivacyday2011.org.

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