If You Are Me Then Who Am I?

If You Are Me Then Who Am I? The personal and business reality of identity theft

I know I posted a recommendation for this book recently but it bears mentioning again. This book does a good job explaining just where we are with identity theft legislation, what we can do as individuals to protect ourselves, the steps most victims usually encounter when they are trying to go it alone to set the records straight, how the law works (or doesn’t work), and how smart businesses can fight the bleeding of sensitive information from their companies. There is an intersection where privacy law, privacy rights, and identity theft merge. This is really at the crux of what identity theft has become and how it affects us as individuals in more ways than we thought. If You Are Me delves into that rather sticky subject with the same objectivity that they treat the other topics they cover. Seeing the scenarios as they might play themselves out helps you to understand just how critical records accuracy is.

I chose early on to concentrate this column to business related topics. The subject is simply too vast for most mortals to tackle, but not the authors of this book. I recommend it to any privacy professional simply because it will shake up some preconceived notions we all have when our work is focused and rather narrow.The authors of this book have laid out in plain terms what the state of identity theft is right now, and where we have come in the past several years. No one can claim to know what will happen in the future of fighting identity theft so this book takes the intelligent approach of trying to prepare us with information and other tools.

Besides privacy specialists, anyone who thinks they know about identity theft and data loss should read it too.

Bravo to the authors!

Remember, “When you protect the information you keep on others you are protecting them. When someone else does it they are protecting you.”