How To Protect Your Financial Privacy

Gregory J. Cook, EA, CPA+ Accredited Tax Advisor Past President Alabama Society of Enrolled Agents Past President Alabama Association of Accountants

Your financial life is an open book to any individual or company with a personal computer, a modem, and the right access codes. That's because many local and national computer databases have records of your name, address, and some part of your personal finances, including information that you may regard as no one's business but your own. You usually won't even know when a business or individual decides to check up on you.

Transaction Records

Today, part of your financial situation becomes a record in a database when you apply for credit, order by mail, pay your taxes, buy a car, etc. Usually, transaction records are not a problem, but databases do give strangers access to information you may not want them to have. Occasionally, the problem isn't annoyance but fraud.

Unavoidable Disclosure

You can't avoid some loss of your privacy. If you want a mortgage or other credit, you have to disclose details about your income and assets. No disclosure, no loan. You also can't control the distribution of some information. For example, motor vehicle registrations, real estate transactions, and property tax payments are public records. And you have to authorize continuing scrutiny of your credit history if you want the convenience of a charge card. You can't stop the recording of information on your finances, but you certainly can do more to protect your privacy.

Guard Your Social Security Number The first rule of information control is: make your data available only when there is a real need for someone else to know it. Your Social Security number is the key to most automated information sharing and record matching. Make sure you give out your number only when necessary. Unless you are paying your income taxes, don't put your Social Security number on your checks and don't keep your number in your wallet. A lost or stolen wallet with your Social Security number can make it easy for someone else to obtain new credit in your name. Many banks, investment funds, and other organizations where you may have an account use Social Security numbers for telephone access to account information. You may want to request that you be able to use another number. Rely More On Cash When you choose to pay with checks or credit cards, you are also choosing to give out information about where you bank and your address (if it's on your checks). A check or credit card also means a detailed record of what, when, and where you buy. You can easily eliminate these purchase records by using more cash when you buy and having your receipts made out to cash. I once received a thank you card in the mail from a waiter that had waited on my wife and I at a restaurant. At first it actually gave me an uncomfortable feeling. I think he got my information from my credit card! I didn't write back to ask.

Call Carefully

Using an 800 number is a convenient cost saver, but not if the company you call isn't reputable. Your call can be the electronic source of your name and address for undesirable solicitation lists or worse if you give out a credit card number to someone who misuses it. Make sure you know the companies you call are legitimate businesses. You'll eliminate possible problems and a source of future unwanted phone calls.

Clean Your Name Off Lists

Major mail-order companies are careful about whom they allow to use their lists of customers. But you can ask companies you buy from not to release your name to others. You can also have your name eliminated from mass mailing lists by writing to the Direct Marketing Association (P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735).

Take Reasonable Care

Protecting your financial privacy is mostly a matter of taking care. Be careful to avoid revealing more than you need to, especially your Social Security number. And be careful about the organizations and persons you give information to -- directly or indirectly.