IN A PERFECT WORLD when you hand over your sensitive data to a company or person that you are enacting a financial transaction with, you are almost unconsciously believing that the information will be secured in every way. How often do you question the recipient of your data on how it will be protected?! We are getting more privacy savvy as consumers but when someone at a doctor's office or big box store asks for our social security number to complete a transaction, people generally deliver the number. When and if the company that has your data either moves locations or worse, goes out of business, you don't ever think about what they are doing with your data. You just think that is it securely destroyed and that's the end of it.
IN THE REAL WORLD what usually happens is that your financial information when received is simply put in a computer, or a hardcopy file. Sometimes it is secured, most times it is not - especially if the company is a small one. The article from the New York Times below got me thinking about some war stories that I have heard being in the Mortgage industry. I remember someone recently told me that a small mortgage broker in their town suddenly went out of business one day and all they did with their piles of mortgage applications was to put them in boxes and then out on the curb to be picked up by the trash men that week. It was a particularly blustery week in that town and 1003 mortgage applications (the crown jewels of your financial life) were blowing all down the street for anyone to see or pickup. Manna from heaven for identity theives or n'er do-wells...
Next time you are asked to hand over data you consider personal or sensitive, ask the recipient "Before I give your this info, how do you protect and secure it?" If they look at you like your speaking Ukrainian (and you are not in Kiev), you should consider taking your business elsewhere. There has to be consequences for such negligence.
How Safe is Your Financial Data?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/realestate/15mort.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=how%20safe%20is%20your%20financial%20data?&st=cse
