The front page of Yahoo! News has quite an interesting story about Identity Theft and Privacy. Everyone may know Todd Davis as the creator of LifeLock who has his real Social Security Number displayed for the world to see and guarantees that it will be safe. Well, interestingly enough, his guarantee didn't stand.
Customers from three different states are suing him because they claim the product doesn't work, a claim Mr. Davis unfortunately knows all too well, since he was also hacked and had his identity stolen. At least 20 people tried to obtain a driver's license in his name, and in 87 different attempts to steal his identity one person managed to succeed and get himself a $500 payday loan in Mr. Davis' name through an online company.
LifeLock charges a monthly fee to monitor your information and set fraud alerts with the credit bureaus. The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, will attempt to shed light on how much protection these companies can actually provide.
It is unfortunate that this happened to Mr. Davis, but he didn't follow the basic rule that everyone learned when they were 12....DON'T GIVE OUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. Nobody can guarantee this type of protection and LifeLock proved it. In Friday's Internet Privacy post, I mentioned that, "You can safely assume that you have zero privacy while surfing the Internet, and privacy protection goes above and beyond the latest Norton update. Privacy on the Internet is not given to you. As an Internet user, you must proactively search ways to protect your Internet Privacy while online." Well, this is a perfect example...Customers thought that LifeLock would be secure enough that they didn't have to worry about anything else. While LifeLock is without a doubt an excellent product, common sense must be used at all times.
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