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We are making it easy for criminals to steal our identities by throwing away sensitive personal and financial documents, ranging from passports and National Insurance numbers to savings books, utility bills and PINs.
Discuss your views and share tips on ID fraud
Research marking the third National Identity Fraud Prevention Week shows that 79 per cent of us are shockingly careless, and helping to fuel a boom in identity fraud that has made it one of Britain's fastest-growing crimes.
Identity fraud takes place when criminals get hold of enough personal and financial information to impersonate other people, with aims ranging from borrowing money to committing serious crimes in their names.
And we are making it easy for them, according to a study carried out for National Identity Fraud Prevention Week into what we throw out with the rubbish, ready for bin-raiding fraudsters to use.
Key findings are:
• More than 19 million households regularly put sensitive materials in waste and recycling bins, an 18 per cent decrease in the past year but still worryingly high.
• 13 per cent throw away entire credit or debit card numbers, along with a record of the card's expiry date and an example of the cardholder's signature.
• 37 per cent of households, more than one in three of us, throw away large amounts of personal information, such as driving licences, phone and utility bills.
It's no wonder that another study, found that three-quarters of adults in the UK have had their identity hijacked and used fraudulently, or have family or friends who have been affected. As a result, 80 per cent of us fear having our identities stolen.
A third project analysing identity fraud hotspots showed that London continues to be the identity fraud capital of the UK. People living inside the M25 are three-and-a-half times more likely to become victims than the national average.
The experience of Experian's Victims of Fraud team, which works with members of the public to resolve problems caused by identity fraud, also shows that criminals target the wealthy, graduates and young professionals renting properties and council tenants.
"People who have been affected by identity fraud know just how distressing, confusing and inconvenient it can be," says Jim Hodgkins, managing director of CreditExpert, the online credit monitoring and identity fraud protection service from Experian.
"It can leave your credit history in tatters, which makes it difficult to get loans, cards, mortgages or the other types of credit that underpin 21st century life, so it makes sense to take every precaution."
"The Home Office recommends credit monitoring as a front-line defence because checking your credit report shows you if anyone else has been trying to borrow money in your name, or succeeding in doing so."
The National Identity Fraud Prevention Week team, which is backed by organisations ranging from Metropolitan Police to Royal Mail, recommends a series of simple steps to protect yourself from ID fraudsters.
They include:
• Keeping personal documents secure
• Shredding sensitive information before throwing it away
• Always checking bank and card statements for unfamiliar transactions
• Redirecting your post for at least a year when you move home
• Visiting www.stop-idfraud.co.uk for more advice and an online risk assessment
• Never giving out personal information to unidentified individuals or strange organisations by phone, e-mail or face to face
• Monitoring your credit report via a service such as CreditExpert, which also alerts you by text or e-mail whenever there is a change that could indicate attempted ID fraud, such as a new application for credit.
To view your personal credit information that lenders are currently basing their credit decisions on, apply now for a free online credit report. Click here for a free 30-day trial and a free copy of your Experian credit report
