Protect Your Family’s Identity with a Dependable and Certified Shredding Company 

Identity theft is consistently on the rise. Some unfortunate victims are the ones parents try to protect the most—children. Yes, kids are easy targets for cyber thugs. They get some information from social media posts, phishing emails, or dumpster diving and take it to the bank by opening credit cards and lines of credit. Just as you protect your identity, you should take similar steps to save theirs. If not, they may suffer significantly by being turned down for student loans, car loans, or credit cards when starting their adult life’s journey. You can take steps to ensure your kids’ identity remains safely and exclusively their own, including utilizing the services of a certified shredding company.

5 Steps to Protect Your Kids’ Identity

As you consider what steps you can take, start here:

1. Use extreme caution with your child’s SSN: Not every event requires your child’s social security number. When asked for it, inquire why it is needed and see if there are other alternatives. Some questions you can ask include:
   • Why do you need my child’s social security number?
   • How will you protect it?
   • Can you use a different identifier?
   • Can you only use the last four digits?

2. Protect any documents that include their personal information: Over time, you will have many documents that will likely have your child’s personal information. It’s best to keep them secure, like in a locked file cabinet. When the time comes to discard them, shredding is the best option.
3. Delete personal information from old computers and cell phones: Before throwing out or recycling an old computer, you will want to clean the hard drive. The same applies to cell phones. You can significantly reduce the risk of recovering any information if the hard drive is destroyed.
4. Pull credit reports on your child. If you find that your minor child has a credit report, it could be a red flag that there has been identity theft. You can then take steps to report it as fraudulent. Remember to provide supporting documents to prove your child’s identity and your own.
5. Freeze your child’s credit report if they are under 16: You need to contact eachof the major credit bureaus to freeze their report. This will prevent criminals from using your minor’s personal information to obtain credit. If your son or daughter is over 16, they can freeze their own credit report.

Protect Your Children’s Future: Choose Crown Information Management

As a family-oriented business, Crown Information Management takes significant steps to ensure our customers have access to high-quality shredding and document storage services. We believe in protecting our customers, including their families. We are NAID AAA and PCI Certified, so you can rest easier knowing we follow the highest industry standards to keep things under control. Take advantage of our complete array of services, including shredding, hard drive destruction, records storage, X-ray destruction, and records indexing. Learn more when you contact us today.

For timely destruction of your child’s documents or your company’s products, hard drives, and secure, pest-free storage with a SOC1 Report,NAID AAA, and PCI Certified company, call Crown Information Management at 800-979-9545. You can also contact us online to learn more about our document storage and shredding services.