Q: HOW CAN A CONSUMER PREVENT EQUIFAX FROM CAPTURING THEIR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
A. The simple answer is, you don’t. This is the nature of cybersecurity, advertising, and digital life.
What you can do is to ensure that your own house is in order. This includes:
- Validating your bank accounts, credit card statements, and other financials monthly.
- Checking your 3 major credit reports monthly.
- If there is anything incorrect, immediately submit correction paperwork.
- Freeze your credit.
- Ensure that your own computer storage and backup are strongly encrypted.
- Ensure you are using secure email.
- Ensure your home/business network is secure (this may take an IT security consultant to verify)
- Ensure your phone is secure.
- Use only strong passwords – a minimum of 15 characters, with a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numeric, and special characters. Complexity is not important – length is.
- Never share your passwords.
