4200 Children Exposed to Identity Theft in Ohio School Data Breach

September 11, 2008 – 4:47 pm

Many adults are now guarding themselves with identity theft protection programs like LifeLock. Some identity thieves are turning to easier targets: their children. Children are becoming preferred victims because it is easier to expose their identities and harder to discover the theft. Students are especially easy targets because schools often have a high amount of sensitive personal data under very low security. One recent data breach exposed the identities of over 4200 students between 1^st and 12^th grade.

An employee at the Reynoldsburg City School District in Ohio took home a laptop containing the names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers of 4,259 students. The laptop was left in the car where it was then stolen. The information was not encrypted and may soon fall into the hands of identity thieves. Parents have been informed by the District that their children are at risk of identity theft.

There is a common misconception that children do not have to worry about identity theft because they are not old enough to have a credit card. Unfortunately this actually makes them even better targets for identity theft. Credit card fraud can still be done successfully on minors. Most identity thieves can only use a stolen identity until someone checks their credit and finds the problem. It is often years before children reach an age where they need to check their credit score, and by then the damage has already been done.

LifeLock recognizes the need for identity theft protection for children as well as adults. That is why Life Lock provides a special program to guard the identities of your children. This service costs just $2.25 each month or $22.50 per year if you use the LifeLock Promotion Code, Defense.

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