Interesting Bedfellows, on the front end, look deeper April 20, 2009
Posted by deborahberchem in Uncategorized.Tags: FBI Imposter, identity theft, Lifelock
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http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-20-2009/0005009092&EDATE=
As the link above shows that a company that is associated with the FBI is helping to promote LifeLock in the Maryland area.
Any time you see something like this I would ask you to look deeper than just the words FBI, as this person is not with the FBI it is another company “FBI-LEEDA” they are former law enforcement persons, as well as possibly current members of law enforcement, but they are NOT the Federal Burea of Investigations.
This is a fairly misleading press release, funny that it doesnt mention the fact that the Company that is putting this information forward is under investigation for a class action law suit from a number of different states.
BUT until it is proven that they are NOT providing the services that they exclaim them to be doing, then they are free to “educate” anyone, all while making a profit while NOT keeping persons safe from identity theft, or anything else.
If you are looking to safeguard yourself or your business, you would be better off going to www.ftc.gov for more information in the US.
I hope that you forward this to any and all persons you know in Maryland to make sure they dont end up paying for a service that will not help them.
It is not hard to figure out why Maryland has had so many reports of identity theft, anyone that is in that area is aware of the Hannaford breach of information.
please make sure that this gets out to all who need to know it.
Dangers of Medical Records being digitized March 4, 2009
Posted by deborahberchem in Uncategorized.Tags: computer, database, Identity, medical, security, Theft
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Yesterday I was sent a link to this interesting article regarding the plan to digitized Medical Records.
Many people are concerned about having their medical Records sitting in a database somewhere they have no control over. It is bad enough that most doctors’ offices still ask for your social security number on their forms, NEWSFLASH the HIPAA rules state that they and the insurance companies are not to be using a Social Security number on their medical as a patient number or insurance number.
Really how many of you have used a doctor’s office in the last 10 years? How many of you have added your social security number just by habit have filled that box out? So really how many of us out there have our Social Security number on our medical forms?
So when they transcribe all of our information into a computer database how likely is it that we are going to be exposed to potential medical ID theft or regular ID theft from fraudsters getting into that information.
I would venture a guess is that they will not be keying the information into their computers, but that the Doctors offices will scan our paper documents into the database, to be keyed later by another company or administrator.
Most persons really believe in the “Not Me” mentality, ID theft in all its forms happen to others, if you have an identity, you are at risk.
With this latest venture to make things “easier” on Doctors as well as patients, but at what cost?
What about Doctors that don’t want to add their patient files, or the patient that doesn’t want their information included in this database, will they loose their medical coverage?
What about the insurance companies that need to add their information, will they be allowed to have an opt-out?
There are too many variables, without a lot of answers for anyone.
Only the coming days, months, and Years will tell the tale.
