Friday, April 6, 2012

4 Important Tips to Protecting Your Private Data Throughout Its Life Cycle

By Zeta C Donairee


Tips on protecting your personal information throughout its lifecycle include keeping documents in a safe area, regularly reviewing your docs, tracking the whereabouts of your personal files, and destroying unessential data properly.

Identity theft cases are fast increasing in number due to the increasing skills of the robbers and the carelessness of individuals in taking good care of their private papers. Because of this, you should protect your personal information at every part of its lifecycle to secure it from these illegal acts.

Keep documents in a safe place

Transfer and keep all your files in an area that's safe from illegal access. For the documents on your laptop, be sure that you place them in a safe location. Always set your personal computer to automatically lock after being idle for some minutes and to only be unlocked using a password. Your password should also be changed every few months and use characters which include both uppercase and lowercase letters and something that is not obvious details. A lot of individuals use their birthdays or even the word "password," and a lot of identity thieves know about this. Select passwords carefully so no one else can get into your account without your consent. For paper files, keep them safe in a location that you can lock and be the only one who has the key. Certainly, this safe place should be made of a heavy material, such as a metal vault, so the entire container cannot be carried away with your files inside.

Regularly examine your papers

Check your personal documents regularly to ascertain if there are mistakes or information that needs to be modified. You must also make sure that while you're accessing or processing your information it is done in a safe way. In addition, for files which you plan to send via mail courier, ensure that they're packaged properly. Always use a reliable courier that you know and who can offer you a monitoring service. Then, verify that your package was received by the proper individual and in the same manner as you had wrapped it.

Track the whereabouts of your private documents

Always use a monitoring service which will provide you details regarding papers you may have sent, replicated, or distributed. Log each time you have any of these tasks done so you can simply track down an issue whenever one occurs and quickly resolve it. It can also be used as a way to manage the damage for a problem that may unexpectedly occur.

Destroy unessential data appropriately

As soon as data is no longer essential, you need to dispose of it properly, like terminating account access or closing regular membership accounts. For example, if a specific data encoder has already completed his tasks, you should close his account and also membership so there will be no reason for someone else to access the account other than you and the other data encoders. For paper files, you should engage shredding services either on site or in a secure place. If you opt to have documents shredded in an area other than on-site, it's highly recommended that you have someone you trust to see the proper destruction of the files. Alternatively, you can also purchase a shredding device which can provide the maximum security you can afford. Then, you can destroy all your documents right in your own workplace.

You can reduce the risk of becoming a victim of identity theft even further by limiting the number of individuals who can access your personal documents.

Discover more about shredding services by visiting http://www.tntshredding.com/




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