Shaheen N Abdul Jabbar

Posts Tagged ‘Identity Theft’

My home town, Toronto, is going through a strike by city workers. It’s all over the news with CNN interviewing the Mayor and governments issuing travel advisories. There is no garbage collection at most of the town and many services run by the city workers are closed. Parents are forced to look for day care alternatives while some of the parks are now garbage dump sites.

I am not going to political aspects of whether it’s good or bad. However, I would recommend everyone not to throw out your bills and other unwanted documents to such garbage without properly shredding them. Dumpster divers may have access to such sites and could easily get hold of your personal information that includes credit card and other financial account numbers. Your address is more than enough for an identity theft.

It’s an application that helps me get together with my pals online. Once a college group is now spread all over the globe. I have a dude in China too! Not many Malayalees end up in China. Once in a while I check their profile to see how they are doing. What I find is really interesting.

There are people who update their status with up to the minute details. I have seen status updates such as “In washroom. Not now.” There are birth dates, phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and wall conversation that reveals your emotions and whereabouts completely – all available to the public. Some are even in the race to collect as much friends as possible.

Facebook is a good tool for thieves waiting for you to leave your home. When you update your status as “heading to town for dinner”, they will be heading to your home.

Some are very candid in showing their birth date, that they don’t realize their Social Security Numbers could be deduced from it and their demographics. This is possible according to a research published by “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” on July 7, 2009 and that’s all needed for an identity theft – name, date of birth and social security number (in Canada its social insurance number).

What about phone numbers and email addresses? Isn’t that a good deal for spammers and telemarketers? I would recommend facebook users to restrict information within the circle of your friends you trust. For some good practices on facebook, here is a good read – http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook.html . Try to update your status that happened in the past such as “enjoyed the great dinner at the Haveli”.

So much for now hoping these thoughts will be published in my facebook notes soon.

Have you ever thought about your medical records ending up in USB keys, CDs or DVDs? Well thats what happens when your medical record is subject to a medical research. Information collected on your disease are saved in a repository for understanding trends and behaviours. This include your medical history and type of medication taken.

Some countries do have statutory requirements to protect personal identifiable information, however the custodians of such data does not care where they end. Clinical Researchers and Physicians are not aware of the ramifications due to loss of such information. Often such records are handled by under paid research assistants who are concerned more on the delivery of the end results of their research rather than the security of such records.

Your medical records are stored in-clear in the laptops, USB storage devices and in the email applications such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail -they are not encrypted.

It should be made mandatory on all custodians of such data to encrypt or obfuscate so that the records cannot be traced back to an individual in case they are stolen.

Should I be concerned that someone had already  dissected my health information and is operating on it? May be! So much for the great excel application from Microsoft!