I used to think it only happened to unsavvy seniors but I've had two people close to me have their identitys stolen and used fraudulently in the past month alone and as someone who works in IT support I've also seen a huge increase in cases of attempted and successful identity theft in the last two years.
I thought it would be a good idea to share what everyone is doing to protect their identities and maybe share some cautionary tales.
Personally the things I do to protect my identity are…
Use unique passwords for important accounts
Everyone has to maintain millions of accounts these days for various things. Now I'm not going to use unique passwords for things like forum accounts but I do make sure that everything tied to my bank account has one, along with my primary email account which could be used to gain access to everything else. I also have a separate email account that is tied to my banking and paypal accounts and is used purely for this purpose, the less databases it's on the better.Dispose of mail securely
Most of your bills contain enough information to successfully steal your identity. Any bills that I haven't already opted to receive as an email I take to work and dispose of in their secure disposal bins.Secured my letterbox
Okay not my letterbox, mine is secured within my building complex, however I did recently put a lock on the letterbox at my partner's house after a replacement drivers license was stolen.Verify requests for information
If I ever receive an email or phone call requesting identifiction details, passwords, etc I always contact the person or company directly through an official channel to verify the request. This is one seems like a no-brainer but we recently sent a dummy phishing email out to all the staff at our workplace and 40% of people fell for it and handed over their credentials.
Use a password manager.
Enable 2FA where ever possible.