Trashing Identities: Interesting Statistics On What Britons Throw Away

Some interesting statistics around what information British citizens are throwing out with the trash have been published as part of the National Identity Fraud Prevention Week in the U.K.

• 79% of Britons are still being careless with our personal details.

• Over 19 million households regularly place sensitive materials in their waste and recycling bins

• 11% throw away whole credit/debit card numbers – a combination of a complete card number with its associated expiry date and owner’s signature was found in the waste and recycling of 13% of households

• A third of Britons are still throwing away everything a fraudster needs to steal a person’s identity, including passports, driving licences, CVs, phone and utility bills

Protecting personal information is integral to preventing identity and credit fraud. Ensuring as much personal data remains as confidential as possible is the most simple and effective way to avoid being a victim of such crime.

This entry was posted on October 11 2007 at 00:37 and is filed under Identity Management, Cyber Crime, Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.