Knowledge Centre
Identity Theft Podcast
18th June 2008 Duration: 4m 26s File size: 2MBFrom staying safe online to training staff and shredding your data, criminologist Professor Martin Gill explains how to stop your business' identity from falling into the wrong hands.
Tags: Start-up
The MORE TH>N BUSINESS Podcast with Criminologist Professor Martin Gill.
Identity Theft is a growing problem and it can affect anyone – you as an individual or your small business. And it often forms part of more serious criminal operations, such as people-trafficking and drug smuggling
Professor Gill: Think about all the information that’s in your business. How could it fall into the hands of others?
Jane Markham - Podcats: And if it does and they are the wrong hands? ...
Prof: It they get information about your business they can pretend to be your business. Run up debts in the name of your business, ruin your reputation, ruin your credibility with suppliers and with the bank so it’s a serious issue if it happens – it’s not likely to but it could. The trouble is that you might not know for a long while. You might not know until it’s too late.
Jane: So what can you do to protect your small business? That’s where Martin Gill has plenty of experience. He was originally from the University of Leicester and now runs a spin out company called Perpetuity Consultancy that assesses the threat to business from crime.
Prof: There are ways you can make it more difficult by making sure that you look after all the information – destroy it properly or protect it while it’s there so it doesn’t fall in to the hands of thieves. You can actually make sure that your company details at Company House are correct - there’s a system there they’ve got to make sure that if somebody changes them you are alerted - so it’s worth signing up to that.
There are ways that people use the internet that puts them at risk. There’s a wonderful website
www.getsafeonline.org which really takes you through all you need to do to protect yourself. Jane: These include things like firewalls and virus checkers. All the things we should be using on our personal computers are even more important on our business computers Prof: You need to have these, you need to keep them updated and you need to make sure that you use them and all staff use them. But identity theft is bigger than that. A lot of people get information about someone’s identity, not from computers but, from ringing up and asking for it, by looking through rubbish sacks and getting information that way, by getting it off staff who are careless. I’ve spoken to identity thieves, I’ve been out there and spoken to them, and they say ‘It’s easy’. Jane: What about other ways of protecting your business? Prof: Make sure when you recruit people you recruit the right people – it sounds a bit obvious but you need to check that they are who they say they are. Make sure that your staff are aware of the dangers of trading online and the way that trading online is done. And make sure that the information that you’ve no longer got a use for in the company is got rid of in a safe way by destroying it with a proper shredder that is fit for purpose. So they are all common sense approaches and if they are built into working practices become the norm. Jane: And some ways of getting information about your business are so straightforward that it’s easy to overlook. Prof: Identity thieves give examples of businesses that share access and all this post arrives and no one knows whose is what and they can easily take it. It’s easy to take it and it’s very accessible too. Jane: That’s very low tech! Prof: But here’s the point – we’ve got to be careful about this technology business, technology is an opportunity for offenders and an opportunity for crime prevention. It fits both. But not all offenders in prison today are high tech people and it’s a mistake to think they are. When you go in to prisons, and I’ve done so regularly, most aren’t like that. Most still deal in the traditional crimes like shop theft and burglary and robbery are still very common and identity theft is a new offence but the methodologies they are using are not that difficult - you get information about people and use it to your advantage. And if you’d like more information about the services MORE TH>N BUSINESS can offer small businesses go to www.morethanbusiness.com or call 0800 294 8527. For your protection calls may be recorded or monitored.
I’m Jane Markham and this is a Podcats production for MORE TH>N BUSINESS.
There are ways that people use the internet that puts them at risk. There’s a wonderful website
www.getsafeonline.org which really takes you through all you need to do to protect yourself. Jane: These include things like firewalls and virus checkers. All the things we should be using on our personal computers are even more important on our business computers Prof: You need to have these, you need to keep them updated and you need to make sure that you use them and all staff use them. But identity theft is bigger than that. A lot of people get information about someone’s identity, not from computers but, from ringing up and asking for it, by looking through rubbish sacks and getting information that way, by getting it off staff who are careless. I’ve spoken to identity thieves, I’ve been out there and spoken to them, and they say ‘It’s easy’. Jane: What about other ways of protecting your business? Prof: Make sure when you recruit people you recruit the right people – it sounds a bit obvious but you need to check that they are who they say they are. Make sure that your staff are aware of the dangers of trading online and the way that trading online is done. And make sure that the information that you’ve no longer got a use for in the company is got rid of in a safe way by destroying it with a proper shredder that is fit for purpose. So they are all common sense approaches and if they are built into working practices become the norm. Jane: And some ways of getting information about your business are so straightforward that it’s easy to overlook. Prof: Identity thieves give examples of businesses that share access and all this post arrives and no one knows whose is what and they can easily take it. It’s easy to take it and it’s very accessible too. Jane: That’s very low tech! Prof: But here’s the point – we’ve got to be careful about this technology business, technology is an opportunity for offenders and an opportunity for crime prevention. It fits both. But not all offenders in prison today are high tech people and it’s a mistake to think they are. When you go in to prisons, and I’ve done so regularly, most aren’t like that. Most still deal in the traditional crimes like shop theft and burglary and robbery are still very common and identity theft is a new offence but the methodologies they are using are not that difficult - you get information about people and use it to your advantage. And if you’d like more information about the services MORE TH>N BUSINESS can offer small businesses go to www.morethanbusiness.com or call 0800 294 8527. For your protection calls may be recorded or monitored.
I’m Jane Markham and this is a Podcats production for MORE TH>N BUSINESS.
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