It\u2019s no secret that the world becomes more and more saturated by digital information every day. We\u2019re all becoming more dependent on technology to keep track of our finances, personal information, schedules, and to-dos. While that may make life more convenient, most people are at least somewhat aware of the dangers that accompany this digital revolution thanks to the ever-lengthening list of data breaches that have occurred over the last few years.<\/p>\n
We want to keep our information safe, of course, and there are companies out there that offer \u201cidentity theft protection<\/a>\u201d services. Unfortunately, these companies don\u2019t actually provide any measure of protection \u2013 what they actually provide are alerts, and these alerts are often received too late for meaningful action to be taken.<\/p>\n Today, we\u2019ll be examining the policies and claims of LifeLock, one such identity theft protection agency that has recently come under fire for violating a 2010 settlement between themselves and the FTC. Charges have been filed because LifeLock has allegedly continued their original violations \u2013 the company has a bad habit of making deceptive claims to garner customers. While LifeLock is prepared to fight against these charges in court, it\u2019s hard to ignore the overwhelming evidence supporting the FTC\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n LifeLock claims to use \u201cadvanced technology\u201d to monitor \u201cover a trillion data points\u201d to protect a wide range of the user\u2019s personal information. Paired with this system is the patented LifeLock Identity Alert system, a system that allows customers to receive alerts via phone call, text message, or email as soon as LifeLock discovers that your information has been taken.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there\u2019s a huge problem with both of these measures: they both do absolutely nothing until it is too late, so this isn\u2019t the best identity theft<\/a> protection. On the internet, data spreads faster than imaginable, not only through the internet that you and I use on a daily basis, but through the dark web, an underground, hidden network of domains and servers that makes up over 90% of the internet. By the time you receive an alert, your information is already out there, and once it\u2019s available, it can never be truly removed. That information will likely be sold off and used as a means to some nefarious end \u2013 a criminal may use your identity to empty out your bank accounts or ruin your credit score, but it could be even worse.<\/p>\n LifeLock and companies like it also have no ability to monitor every transaction you make. Hidden in the fine print of every LifeLock commercial is the disclosure \u201cNetwork does not cover all transitions\u201d, and beyond that, \u201cNot all merchants participate and on occasion an application may be submitted by a lender or service provider that does not fall within our network.\u201d<\/p>\n So what does all of that mean? Basically, it means that if you pay for an identity theft protection services like LifeLock, you\u2019re paying for an early warning. Early warnings are nice, but what you really want is actual protection, and that protection comes in the form of identity theft insurance<\/a>, a low-cost policy that can help you truly recover from identity theft by reducing the financial impact of a security breach instead of just telling you when a breach occurs. Don\u2019t just know when your identity has been stolen \u2013 call today to learn how to guarantee your financial security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s no secret that the world becomes more and more saturated by digital information every day. We\u2019re all becoming more dependent on technology to keep track of our finances, personal information, schedules, and to-dos. While that may make life more convenient, most people are at least somewhat aware of the dangers that accompany this digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[724,709,725,707],"tags":[374,375,491],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6714,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/6714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.costulessdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}