Identity theft doesn’t just hit adults. Children are especially vulnerable to it, since they have clean credit and financial histories and no background information or signature on file. This makes it easy for thieves to take out credit and loans in a child’s name. In most cases, the victims and their families never even realize that there is an issue until the child becomes an adult and pursues his or her own credit and financial footprint. Then it becomes obvious: years of bad debt, defaulted loans and possibly a criminal background.
The web of identity-related issues can be ponderous and take many years to solve. There have been cases that have dragged on for decades and even some where the innocent child (now adult) was arrested because of the actions of the thief.
There are several things that you can do right now to protect your children from identity thieves.
Start by securing your child’s information, especially his or her social security number and birthdate. Thieves often change the year on the date, and many times stores and other people issuing credit don’t look past the month and day. Before giving this information out to anyone, make sure that you know that providing this information is absolutely necessary. Ask for an alternate way of identifying your child on a form.
It is also important to make sure that the proper protective software is installed on all of your computers, since a majority of identity thieves use the Internet to mine for information.
Be informed, and inform older children, of all of the new ways that identity thieves have for stealing your identity. Look over the following list:
Smishing: Through text messages on your cell phone, thieves trick you into providing personal information about your credit card or bank account. It is not uncommon to get two or three of these fake text messages a day.
Clickjacking: Often seen on Facebook, it happens when malicious software is embedded into a website and makes your Internet browser display bogus web pages without your knowledge. Meanwhile, a thief may be getting your personal information.
Drive-by Downloads: When visiting a website, malicious software gets downloaded to your computer. It then records and sends information back to the thieves, information that might include stored passwords, back account numbers and other personal stuff. When shopping online, it is especially important to visit only proven and trusted web stores.