50 Ways to Protect Your Identity in a Digital Age: New Financial Threats You Need to Know and How to Avoid Them, Second Edition

10. Protecting Your Privacy—A Key to Preventing Identity Theft

A key to preventing identity theft is limiting the exposure of as much data about you as possible. Identity thieves exploit the availability of personal information from free Web sites throughout the Internet as well as by hacking into the companies and agencies that hold personal information about us. Unfortunately, not enough of us consider this even though we know that the more places that have information about us, the greater the possibility of identity theft occurring through hacking and other actions over which we have no control. According to Consumer Reports, almost half of the victims of identity theft in 2011 became victims not because of their own actions, but because ...