When someone assumes your identity

 

We've all heard about the scams, identity theft and so on that occurs online, but we don't always experience it. Well, a few days ago I experienced it.

A friend messaged me and asked if I had changed my profile on Instagram. She sent me the screen capture shown at left: my name, my photo.

It wasn't my account, but had my name and a photograph of me on the profile. The name isn't such a problem as there are literally dozens of Robin Henrys out there, but none looks identical to me and has the same shirt I bought from Tintagel Brewery in Wales, UK.

I'm not the most handsome man on the planet which makes you wonder why they would use my photo and not that of someone more handsome, and perhaps younger.

Who knows?

What I do know is that they messaged my followers asking them to re-link to them. So, this is a word of caution. If a friend asks you to relink, suspect that someone has replicated their site.

I reported the incursion to Instagram and within a day or so, they advised that the dodgy profile and account had been deleted.

About 10 years ago I had someone copy a whole blog site of mine, using years of content for their own sales purposes. My site had tens of thousands of visitors and that's what they wanted. I managed to have that shut down too.

For many years now, I habitually and invariably encrypt files, use encrypted end to end email, install a Virtual Private Network (VPN) on my devices, protect them with ZoneAlarm, use LastPass password manager, and take other precautions including shredding documents with identity and other important personal information on them.

What do you do to protect your devices, files and personal information?

Robin

PS: I don't use Facebook because of the scrutiny and security issues either.