You shred your personal documents, you protect your social security number, and you do what you can to protect your identity. Despite your best efforts, you may be more exposed than ever before.
Smart phones are a great tool. From business e-mail to Facebook, even online banking, people are doing everything on their phones.
“How many times has someone left a restaurant and left their cell phone sitting there?” asks computer expert Bill Ramsey with The Bill Guy Technology Solutions in Wichita. Ramsey says think about what you have on your phone these days.
“Everything about you is held on phones these days.” And for some reason, Ramsey says we're lax with security. “A lot of people will tell things to save their passwords, so people have direct access into that system."
Smart phone users we talked to differ.
“I'm not one to put my information out there,” says Jeremy Hill who does a lot of his work on a laptop and cell phone.
Hill says losing his phone would be that big of a deal. Claude Reichenback is just the opposite.
“I use it for work and I use it for personal life. If I lost my phone I would die.” Reichenback says laughing.
She says losing her phone could damage her consulting business. “It could be dangerous to my business and to myself also,” says Reichenback.
Even the most simple of machines aren't so simple anymore. Photocopiers have hard drives and store everything you copy.
Think about that. What have you made copies of at the office, or worse yet, a public machine? “Almost everything has a storage device in it,” says Ramsey.
Ramsey says whatever the device; make sure your information is deleted before you sell it.
When it comes to phones, information is hard to delete.
Make sure you read the owner’s manual, or take it to your provider. Every model is different.
Also, don't assume that just because you've removed your sim card that all the information is gone.
With office equipment like photocopiers, make sure you remove the hard drive before you sell it or return to the provider. If you don't know how, find someone who does.
Ramsey says it’s also important to use passwords to protect your phone. He says it’s too easy to forget your cell phone.
“Absolutely, people keep all kinds of information on their cell phones,” says Ramsey.
