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Lifelock Worries After Employee Data Leaked To Web
itwbennett writes "Last week, Phoenix New Times reporter Ray Stein revealed that LifeLock CEO Todd Davis (who famously published his Social Security number in LifeLock ads) had been the victim of identity theft at least 13 times. This week, LifeLock made it clear that it's not so cavalier with its employees' personal data. The company asked the New Times to remove from its website a police report containing a redacted Social Security number, date of birth, address, and phone number of Lifelock employee Tamika Jones. In an interview, Stein said that the fact that LifeLock had to call and ask for the document to be removed reflected badly on Lifelock's service. 'I think this shows clearly that they know that it's got potential problems.'"
Anyone who expects a service to 100% protect them from identity theft is an idiot. Its just like a virus scanner, it might be helpful but its no substitute for common sense.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Not everyone reviews a credit report before issuing any type of credit.
ID thieves can potentially abuse personal information, no matter how many types of fraud alerts you put, there is no guarantee that it will be seen by every third party.
Or the ID thief may employee social engineering and even defeat the 'fraud alert'
Todd Davis' publishing his social security number is a gimmick, and he should understand the risks, and chose to do so anyway, clearly as a publicity stunt.
As CEO and well-known media figure he can probably more easily deal with any ills that result than the average joe, and rely on his company to pay all the money and take all the hassle haggling with creditors of ID thief.
Minor cost well worth the publicity.
His SSN is also more likely to be recognized by banks, and (I suspect) he has little need to himself apply for credit, personally, otherwise he would not do it.
As for other employees of the company.... they have not agreed to this, not agreed to the hassle, and are in a much poorer position to defend themselves against ID theft. They have every right to their privacy, and to not have media organizations publish redacted/legally sealed or legally witheld info.
http://www.cringely.com/2010/05/lifeblocked/
Exactly. I've been waiting for this story ever since I laughed at their first commercial.
*DrugCheese rants*
...Freeze your credit reports.
EQUIFAX Online Help: How to place a security freeze
Experian Online Help: Security Freeze
TransUnion Personal: Security Freeze
Problem solved, and you're not paying $9.95 a month for a service you can easily perform yourself that is far more effective then what any of these supposed "Identity protection" companies offer.
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
No. At this point, potential has surpassed threshold and achieved REAL problem status.
Anyhoo, Lifelock is a scam. Plain and simple.
They'll take your money right enough, but they really can't deliver on their promises to protect you and your information.
They're like insurance salesmen. They're simply trying for quantity and trying to live on margins, hoping that they don't get hit big by some massive info theft that they can't cover up or make disappear.
Once they get a breach of a truly significant portion of their customer's data, expect to see them fold up shop like all the old fly-by-night insurance salesmen in the Depression.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You are absolutely correct! They are doing exactly as I would expect the service to do. She got her info on a police report. The police department gave a media outlet the report in such a way that her personal information was exposed. LifeLock called the media outlet and asked to remove her data. There is no way anybody could have prevented the info from getting there in the first place... except maybe not giving the police department your SSN when reporting a crime happening to someone else.
If I was a customer of theirs, and a police department did the same to me, then LifeLock is doing exactly as I would expect them to do, if they wanted to continue getting my monthly fee.
However, Tamika is one of their own, and the police report was published in an article about them. I don't think they would even notice if it had happened to a regular customer and/or if it had not been an article concerning LifeLock.
Where is that story? Oh, lifelock is an easier target. I understand.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
You're an idiot, it has nothing to do with no-call lists or any such thing.
It puts a "fraud alert" on your accounts and renews it every 90 days or however long they last for. Something you can easily do yourself for free. Basically having a fraud alert makes banks, lenders, etc. actually do SOME amount of work to verify your identity rather than blindly allowing anyone with a social security number to get a loan in the owner of that number's name.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Basically having a fraud alert makes banks, lenders, etc. actually do SOME amount of work to verify your identity rather than blindly allowing anyone with a social security number to get a loan in the owner of that number's name.
Not entirely true. It theoretically requires banks, lenders, etc do some work before opening a new account. In practice, they usually skip this step. Trust me, I know from experience. I opened a new bank account while I had a fraud alert on my files, yet I was never contacted to confirm that I indeed opened that account. When I pressed the credit reporting agencies on it, I was told that the fraud alert system is more of a "best practice" type of thing, and that companies were in no way obligated to actually follow the guidelines.
With fraud alerts, banks/lenders/etc are recommended to do some verification work, but they aren't *required* to do so. Some institutions might skip the verification and thus allow more ID theft to go on. Better to freeze your credit entirely. It costs some money to place, thaw and remove (how much depends on your state and whether or not you've been a victim of ID theft), but it is definitely worthwhile. As a bonus, since credit card companies can't see your credit information, they won't "pre-approve" you for credit cards and send those blank forms which then need to be shredded lest some ID thief steal them.
Of course, the credit agencies hate security freezes. They want you to place fraud alerts because they can still sell your credit information and you can still sign up for store credit cards on the fly. That's why their lobbyists will fight any bill that promises to make security freezes less expensive or easier to obtain.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.