I spend a lot of time and effort to protect the privacy of my personal information. I am very careful. I have pretty good security hygiene. But I don’t have total control of my personal information and it is frustrating. I am hearing the same sentiments from many of you.

My information has been compromised on multiple occasions over the past two years, (including the one announced last week) by companies who have my data. I didn’t send my personal information to these companies, nor do I always know why they have it or why they have kept it for years after it was no longer relevant.

As soon as I find out that I may possibly be part of a data breach, I sign up for whatever product the company is offering. I have done this three times in the past two years. Most of these products will alert you if anyone has opened an account under your name. It is difficult to prevent fraud when you find out about an opened fraudulent account after the fact.

I often agree with Brian Krebs, and have heeded his advice over the years and have placed a security freeze on my accounts so supposedly no one can open an account, including me, until the freeze has been lifted, so you can actually prevent fraud. It appears to be working.

Here is Brian Krebs’ piece about placing a credit freeze on your accounts, which you may wish to consider before you are notified that you have been involved in a data breach.

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