Homework Responses Wk 1
The research topic I will be presenting for this class asks the question; How important is it to protect your information and reduce your digital footprint? This topic became a special interest item for me over the last year. I was like most Americans who knew that protecting your online profile was s good thing but never understood just how deep the rabbit hole went.
I want to ensure that this topic’s perspective is different from Ryan’s. My focused goal is to provide a graphical representation and timeline associated with an individual’s personal recovery from identity theft. Based on those metrics, the observational approach will continue with surveyed accounts of victims that have already been published. The more we move online each decade only provides further emphasis on Personal Identifiable Information (PII) protection standards and keeping your online profile outside of the Publicly Available Information (PAI) sphere.
Topic 1: Protecting yourself.
Why is this important?
I chose this topic for a number of reasons. Primarily this is to inform the average citizen understands just how easy it is for their online life to become a profile for someone to target. PII such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, credit card numbers and medical records are largely at the forefront of personnel security, but does the average researcher understand that even the research they are conducting for school can be monitored/tracked? Grey literature is the term that encompasses all of the unpublished publications that institutions use to prevent plagiarism. Turnit databases are just as susceptible to monitoring as everything else.
Topic 2: Identity theft.
Unauthorized access to online information leads to someone seeking to masquerade as you for profit. This can be as simple credit card fraudulent charges to destroying your credit history or even defaulting on loans in your name. Regardless on what type of identity theft, this could potentially take years to recover from.
Who to turn to?
- Https://www.csis.org
- https://notified.idtheftcenter.org/s/
- https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-how-to-ten-ways-to-keep-your-data-private.html
Topic 3: Business data breeches & protecting your PII.
The United States has mandated your protection through federal laws and the US Privacy Act of 1974. All businesses are required to secure personal identifiers and document all risks through programs such as the medical industry’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), consumer financial market’s Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the ongoing online regulation disputes with social media. This regulation ensures the companies themselves strive to protect your information or be fined by the government, but this does not stop the motivated offenders. As on early October, there have been 1,291 breaches with some of the major leaks effecting millions of Americans in one breech. Compared to the some 1,108 in 2020. What is worse is these are only the discovered breeches.
What are some of the recent/biggest data leaks?
- Astoria Company
- Yahoo email intrusion
- Twitch.tv
Initial sources:
Arata, M. J. (2004). Preventing identity theft for dummies. Wiley.
Collins, J. M. (2005). Preventing identity theft in your business how to protect your business, customers, and employees (1st edition). Wiley.
JOHN C. BAKER, BETH E. LACHMAN, DAVID R. FRELINGER, KEVIN M. O’CONNELL, ALEXANDER C. HOU, MICHAEL S. TSENG, DAVID ORLETSKY, & CHARLES YOST. (2004). An Analytical Framework for Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Accessible Geospatial Information. In Mapping the Risks (1st ed., p. 93–). RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/mg142nga.14