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Greene-Lewis recently reported that studies showing an increasing trend in the number of stolen laptops. Worse, it was identified that nearly half or 45% of identity theft cases were due to stolen laptops.

What does this tell us? This only means that a stolen laptop is a goldmine for identity thieves. Why? This is because a laptop contains and can store all sorts of data about you and about other people.

People use their laptops for both personal and business use. Government institutions store millions of Social Security numbers. Hospitals record patient information and medical data. Credit card companies store credit card numbers and other sensitive information. Imagine if this data becomes available to an identity thief. How many lives will be put at risk for data theft? How many names can be used to commit fraud and crimes?

A stolen laptop is a very serious problem. Here are some examples of stolen laptop incidents and tips on how to protect your laptop.

Case of Stolen Laptop No. 1

In late 2012, news broke about the stolen laptop of an employee from a home monitoring company. This company provides disease health management solutions. So naturally, the company laptop stolen from the employee contained thousands of patient data. The news specified that more than 100,000 customers became at risk for id theft due to laptop theft. The company laptop contained unencrypted data thus there is no privacy protection of data.

Lesson Learned

A pressing issue nowadays is data protection due to the widespread increase in identity theft. One of the most sought after sources of personal data is the laptop because it is easy to steal and contains just as much information as a personal computer. Nevertheless, protection of personal data does not end with avoiding laptop theft. It is equally important to make a conscious effort by properly disposing data from hard drives. Else, data security breach will continue to occur despite the absence of lost laptops.

Case of Stolen Laptop No. 2

In mid-2012, a doctor’s laptop was stolen. The said laptop contained a tracking device but it was not recovered. Hence, an estimated 3,900 patients from the medical center where the doctor worked received letters about possible data breach of their medical data. The doctor’s laptop did not contain complete patient health information and other sensitive data such as SSNs and financial records. Nevertheless, the lack of encryption in the laptop might have put some patient information at risk.

Lesson Learned

Laptop encryption is a very helpful security measure to prevent data theft when your laptop gets stolen. This is especially true for people who use company and personal laptops for business purposes. This will serve as your last defense against id theft in case your laptop gets stolen. The use of appropriate and up-to-date anti-virus programs and other software is also critical.

Tips to Prevent Id Theft

In addition to the aforementioned tips, you can prevent id theft when traveling, too, by securing your laptop. Don’t leave your laptops in your cars. Never leave your laptop unattended in a public place. Remember: Id theft occurs when a thief gets hold of your personal identifying information. As you now know, your laptop is a goldmine of personal information that can be used to commit id theft. Thus, it is very important to incorporate the lessons learned in the cases of stolen laptops presented. Source:

Amy is an active blogger who is fond of sharing interesting finance related articles to encourage people to manage and protect their finances. She also covers topics on credit protection and credit monitoring.