Rural or Urban, Watch for Data Breeches

It doesn't matter if you live downtown, or out on a farm, these days we're all susceptible to data breaches.  If you live in Washington, help will soon be available.  According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Nearly two-billion records nationwide were exposed in 2017 by breaches.

With that in mind, security and consumer experts are going on tour in the Evergreen State to help people protect their identities.  Doug Shadel with AARP Washington, says anyone can benefit from the "Taking Charge of Your Digital Identity" campaign.

"We say that we're sort of living in this 'post-prevention world,' and what I mean by that is that pretty much everyone's information has been compromised already. That's the bad news. The good news is there's something you can do, steps you can take to prevent that theft of your personal information from being converted into identity fraud."

Shadel says it's also good news that roughly 6% of people actually become identity theft victims, despite the rising number of data breaches.  The campaign launches will tour the state in the coming weeks, with stops in Spokane on June 14^th, Vancouver June 27^th, the Tri-Cities on July 11^th.

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