Can Shredding Really Keep Our Identity Safe?

We are being told on a daily basis it seems that we must protect our identity and keep our details secret and safe, well away from prying eyes. Cover the key pad when you enter your pin, shred your bank statements, never let your credit card out of your sight etcetera. Some people are cynical about the whole thing, especially as it seems that no matter what we do, the Government are likely to hand out our details to anyone on public transport. Is it all really a lot of media hype, is there really anything we can do to protect ourselves; will shredding our lives away really help, especially when so much of our lives are held in cyber space anyway.

If you have ever seen an episode of Hustler the show where ex con men show us dopey eyed, slack jawed jokers just how we can be ripped off whenever we leave the house, you will know that there a billion and twenty one ways that a good confidence trickster could clear your bank account and assume your identity whilst living it up on a Caribbean beach. It seems that all it takes is a blase attitude and a whole heap of audacity. They once demonstrated how if you are prepared to take an apron to a busy restaurant and hang around outside, you could pretend to be a member of staff, collect a card from someone who has just finished eating and after swiping it in a copying machine, just wander off like you've not a care in the world.

In light of this programme I have decided that considering that I could be duped every second of the day at every turn, I am pretty fortunate that I still know who I am and have the same overdrawn bank account as always. I have to admit, I don't and never have turned to shredding my documents, but I do burn them to get an open fire going. Destroying hard copies of my statements from home is not a priority, but I think that all the companies and the local council should perform the shredding of my details on my behalf. Any fraudster worth his salt is not going to be rummaging around in my recycling, he will be hacking into a computer and taking my life from some remote data base.

I have recently found out that it's not just sensitive material on paper that can be shredded, but information on hard drives, disks and the like can go through a shredding process too. Someone should definitely tell the government about that one. My identity has more of a chance of being safe from cyber criminals if binary information is passed through a binary shredder, or however it works. This does lead me to a somewhat hypocritical conclusion though I am afraid to say.

We have, as a nation been in uproar over the Government's disregard for the safety of our personal information, we have complained en masse about the introduction of identity cards and as for biometric passports, we have demonstrated against being turned into some sort of cyborg nation. We don't seem quite so bothered about our identity being stolen when we log on to sites that demand our every last detail so we can shop on line or look at images that would make your granny blush, or even gamble our savings way. It seems that for ultimate security we need our brains shredding and not our documents, even if it only to save us from ourselves.

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