Back to School...

• How many new high school graduates submitted applications to several different colleges and universities all across North America?
• How many applied for Student Loans?
• How many of those college and university students are applying for their first credit card; their own car insurance; or signing rental agreements for housing?

Everyday personal information is handed over without ever considering the possibility of where it ends up. What happens to all the applications that get denied? Where do they get filed? Why don't we have a family attorney review rental agreements before signing them?

When reviewing the number of data breaches that occur each year, Colleges and Universities claim a very large portion. What happens with that information? After all, they are mostly poor students! They do not have much in financial assets. So that leads to other arenas of identity theft: criminal, medical, drivers license, SSN or SIN.
Hopefully it was an amateur thief, who tries to use the collected information right away, and gets caught. Unfortunately, it is usually the professional thieves that like to hit on colleges and universities. They do not immediately use the information they collect. In fact, they tuck it away into a vault and let it age and mull like fine wine. They are patient for the bigger prize.
Once the students have graduated with their MBA, and have a six-figure income, the professional thief will pull the now valuable information out and begin using it. Anything the thief doesn't have, is easily attainable on the Internet for free, or for a nominal fee.

So I ponder... when there is a breach, many times the victims are offered a one year program of a credit monitoring service. Credit monitoring is not going to do much good if the stolen information is used for the other types of identity theft. And it certainly won't do any good when it gets used 10 years after it has been stolen!

STUDENTS BEWARE

'THINK' EVERY TIME YOU HAND OUT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION