Morgan Adams provided some great information on personal security at the toastmasters meeting. It was a good topic and decided to share my notes. In light of Christmas he also had a great title.

Morgan talked about all the possible ways that individual information can be exposed to the public. That includes private information as well as family information. Some private information is exposed through government surveillance.

Another is that a company can keep track of your contacts and then sell that information to other organizations. This is one of the reasons why you might begin to get a lot of junk mail is because your name was associate with someone else.

You identity is at risk in such things as medical records with social security number, login information, financial information. Exposure is not always desirable. People could study information about you and then get account information and name information and possibly even guess your password because a personal information and observer/researcher has learned about you.

Morgan googled a member of the club who had a unique name to see what he could find out about them. He was able to find her interests and activities. He learned that she was a storyteller. He discovered what companies she’s worked for in the past as well as names of some of her friends. He was able to view some recent entries on her Facebook account and saw some of the other accounts that she already had such as linked in.

YouTube is one way where someone (friend or stranger) can go ahead and take a video of you doing something silly and you can become an overnight sensation to be viewed by thousands of people if not more.  This would include your future perspective employers.

When you share your private information with a company you would be well advised to read the small print. Because in the small print they can admit that they share your information with others.

Have something to add to the list? Please do so in the comment section of this blog.