Employers who mandate identity monitoring lower their risks
Employers should make it a mandatory exercise that all employees regularly monitor their identity. Data breaches of the company’s own employees’ personally identifiable information (PII) can be detected if an employee discovers inappropriate activity from their review of credit reports and other free consumer aggregators’ data bases. If they follow a strategy of reviewing their reports by spacing them out through out the year, they increase the likelihood of discovering a problem early.
Personal Advice: There are three major credit bureaus that are tied to the absolutely free http://www.annualcreditreport.com resource website. When a person signs on to this website they are presented with all three major bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union) with a radio button type selection option. To practice the strategy mentioned above, choose just one. Then come back in 120 days and choose the next. And then 120 days later again choose the third. Don’t panic if you see something you do not recognize, just challenge it by following the bureau’s instructions to inquire further into a posting. If it is an error, follow the dispute process. Only ask for all three at once if the first report reveals inappropriate activity after your investigation. To learn more about monitoring other data aggregators who also allow one free report of the information they would report on you, go to our website under the consumer’s section. http://btr-security.com. Sign-up for free self monitoring support. We will send you an email reminder when it is time to take your next step in this and additional strategies.
Benefit for employer’s: If an employer mandates that their employees practice this exercise and report that they have each time performed, as part of their continued employment, they will reduce their risk of not discovering a data breach leaked from their own files. This is especially true if all of a sudden several employees are reporting they discovered inappropriate use of their identity. If the problem is isolated to just the one employee reporting a problem, at least they have discovered the problem early and they will be in a better position to resolve the problem without sacrificing too much time off work or time at work handling the problem verses doing their assigned work tasks. With either result, the employer benefits from early detection of a data breach or at least a less distracted employee.
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (http://www.idtheftcenter.org) over 354 million records have been reported breached since they started tracking data breaches in 2005. With so much information out there on us, we all should be monitoring our identity on a regular basis. We live in a different world today with the misuse of personal information on the rise, and the only way we can combat this problem is by viewing these reports generated about us by credit bureaus and the other data aggregators. If you would like a free consultation on protecting your identity, please call 610-444-5295 for a no obligation appointment. Ask us to speak at your next event at no charge too.