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It’s not completely uncommon for a college student to be the victim of identity theft. Generally they are targeted because they are thought to be easier ‘marks’. Hopefully with these tips you will learn how to prevent being the victim of identity theft.
Never give your SSN out
Do not give your Social Security Number out to anybody. The only time you should ever be required to present your SSN is in your initial papers to your university and when you first go to the student medical center. After this time they usually accept either the last 4 digits of your SSN or your Student ID.
Student ID
Generally you will get your Student ID number before you even get to school. They will assign it to you by snail mail or email. Although the ramifications of having your Student ID # stolen are not nearly as great as for your SSN it is still a good idea to keep it somewhat private. Grades are often posted outside classrooms and you may not want other people to be able to know what your grades are. Your student ID number can also be used to access a number of school databases that you will likely not want to share out.
Be careful with your college e-mail account. You will use this to send e-mails to professors and TA’s and the like. The last thing that you want is to be the victim of a prank in which one of your friends sends some horrible e-mail to one of your professors. Your friends may not realize how seriously detrimental this could be. So be careful as to not check the box that allows your computer to remember your password for this one.
Computer
Take a minute to think about all the personal and important information you store on your computer. Now imagine how horrible it would be if somebody else were to access all of that information. To prevent this you should password protect your computer by allowing access only after the password has been entered. That way nobody can get on your computer.
Facebook and other social media networks
This is a very touchy subject for a lot of people. The types of things you put up on your Facebook account can come back to bite you. Be wise with what pictures you keep on your profile, a lot of people have access to see these pictures. It is also a good idea to make your Facebook profile private so that only people who you are friends with can see it. There are millions of people on Facebook and you probably don’t want all of them to be able to see what you are up to.