Electronic Pickpocketing

How safe is your information?

With every new and innovate way to try to secure everyone’s personal information, thieves are finding new and scary ways to get at people’s data. Items that you use every day and carry with you everywhere could be making you vulnerable to an identity thief.

All U.S. Passports, credit cards, I.D.s, driver’s licenses and debit cards, since 2006, are issued with RFID tags that contain all sorts of very personal information. RFID tags in these types of items contain your name, your address, your credit card number, and all sorts of other very important information that you do not want strangers knowing and that could lead you to being a victim of identity theft. The RFID tags in all of these things are constantly transmitting tiny blips of information even when there is no receiver in the vicinity.

To someone with the right equipment, you are basically walking around with all of your pertinent information flashing over your head like a banner. The “right equipment” is also easier, cheaper and a lot more innocuous than one would think.

Pickpockets now-a-days don’t have to risk being caught with their hand in your pocket or purse because now they can purchase a simple credit card reader and a laptop and “lift” your information from your wallet just by walking past you. In a crowded place, like a sporting event or shopping mall, a thief can easily collect hundreds or thousands of people’s information in the span of a couple of hours all while looking like just another fan or shopper.

How can you protect your information from this kind of theft? Well, as crazy as it sounds, you can line your wallet with tin foil to help prevent the digital theft. If you prefer a nicer looking and slightly less “crazy-sounding” solution, any metalized nylon material will work nicely to disrupt the RDIF communications. Just do a quick Google search, there are plenty of companies out there that make very nice wallets, passport holders and clutches utilizing materials designed to block RFID.

~TeCHS