Do You Know Who Has Your Personal Info?

Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 7:00:00 am PDT

I was at a family gathering over the weekend and a relative approached me asking about a letter he received in the mail earlier in the week that disturbed him. The letter was from the Bank of New York Mellon Shareholder Services stating that his personal information (including his social security number) had been compromised, although there was no reason to believe it had been used fraudulently.

They offered to give him free credit monitoring for two years as compensation for the inconvenience. Aside from being alarmed over the fact that his information had been compromised, my relative was legitimately confused over how the Bank of New York Mellon had his information in the first place. He had never personally opened an account with (or directly invested with) the Bank of New York Mellon. So, he handed me the letter and asked if I thought it was a scam that he should ignore. 

Knowing that the Bank of New York Mellon really did just suffer a major data breach, I decided to investigate further. My initial thought was that the account might somehow be related to an annuity my relative inherited from his mother’s passing several years ago. But when I dug deeper I realized something. There, nestled in the middle of a large body of text on the Bank of New York Mellon website, was a huge clue: “BNY Mellon Shareowner Services serves as a stock transfer agent and stock plan administrator for public companies.”

Now, this relative has been with multiple companies in his career and has had 401ks with many of those companies along the way. Chances are the Bank of New York Mellon has somehow been involved in handling my relative’s retirement accounts.

He was relieved to know that the letter did appear to be legitimate (even though he wasn’t too thrilled to realize his information had been compromised). But his experience got me thinking about something.

Do you know who has your information? If you are like most people, you have retirement accounts orchestrated by your employers; you are listed as someone’s beneficiary on his or her financial accounts, etc…Your name and information may be on countless accounts that you don’t think about daily. With data breaches becoming more and more common (2008 has boasted the most data breaches ever), do you know who has your personal information on file? 

If not, I suggest you take some time this weekend and sit down and review all of the accounts you currently have, and have had in the past, so you are familiar with who may have your information. That way, if a data breach occurs you will be equipped to act more quickly when it comes to protecting your information. My relative almost blew the NY Mellon data breach off as a fraud. I’m glad he asked me about it and is choosing to take extra precautions to safeguard his information instead. 

Remember, it’s not just your own handling of your information that matters. In fact, your biggest concern should be about others who handle (and mishandle) your information since you have something to lose and they don’t.

So, take some time and get organized. Know who has your information and how they are protecting it. And then take the necessary steps to protect yourself.