How often do you, in the course of your employment, come across personal data such as social security numbers, addresses, DOBs (date of birth), or financial records? In my line of work as a tech support analyst, we often look at personal data either because we need to identify someone before doing a password reset, or in the course of backing up someone’s data during a repair.
There’s a good rule of thumb for making sure you don’t fall victim to a lawsuit in the case of FERPA (financial and educational record privacy act) and HIPPA (health insurance privacy and portability act) violations, and that’s to make sure you don’t have any access to information you don’t need access to see, and don’t give any information to people who shouldn’t have it.
In the era of identity theft and privacy violations, government-run agencies and businesses alike are running scared and auditing left and right – and with good reason! These violations can cost not only huge fines to the entities found liable, but also the individual can be charged with civil and criminal charges and fined exorbitant amounts.
If you’re worried about such entities fumbling the ball with your personal information, you can sign up for something like life lock, who monitor your credit activities for suspicious events and remove you from junk mail lists, and also provide a guaranty against loss due to identity theft, all for a low monthly fee.