Destroying data to protect against fraud

Financial Adviser Scott Pape told CSO “the easiest way to takeover someone’s identity is not high tech ways like stealing a Facebook login but to go through their paper recycling bin”.

The Federal Attorney General (PDF) suggests Australians should “destroy all old records, files, bills, unsolicited credit card application forms, expired cards - by tearing, cutting up, shredding or burning them before you throw them in the recycling or waste paper bin.”

These procedures are particularly important around high-risk times when many people receive and throw away the same kinds of documents such as census forms.