Privacy in the Information Age: A Blogger's Dilemma

Kate McCaffery

As someone who's written about personal finance for many years, privacy has long been an interest of mine – even more so in these heady days of social networking sites, where people share personal details in spite of the well-documented risks of doing so.

Admittedly I am and always have been cautious about some things. Where friends don't think twice about broadcasting personal details on Facebook, etc., I do hesitate to announce when I'll be out of the house and on vacation, lest someone take the opportunity to break into my house, disturb the dust bunnies and steal my Canadian Tire money or six-year old laptop. (This is slightly paranoid perhaps, but then again, my sister's identity was stolen twice already. These things actually do happen to real people!)

So while I think about what I might have to offer you Walletpoppers, I keep wondering if I should be drawing boundaries or drawing on my own experiences. I obviously won't be posting my banking information or anything like that, but we are on the verge of buying our first house, I'm self-employed (it'll be a year in April) and there are all sorts of money-related things going on in our lives which, I imagine, will be excellent experiences to draw on and share with you.

You can see which direction I'm leaning in, eh?

The privacy commissioner's a really nice lady. She's far more interested in big picture items, like what companies do with your personal information, but in the next few weeks I'm going to try and get her on the phone to see what she thinks about personal privacy and situations where people give their own information away willingly to the interweb. (Fingers crossed! I expect it'll be a really interesting interview if it works out.)

In the meantime, here are a few sites and resources you might want to troll and contemplate if you're at all interested in this sort of thing. (At the very least, darlings, do check up on your own credit report every few years – it's a ridiculously easy thing to do. Less than three minutes on a touch tone phone and they'll send it to you for free.)

Bye for now,
Kate

It turns out March is Fraud Prevention Month in Canada

Access your own credit report

Equifax (Note: To access your report immediately online, Equifax will charge you. Getting your credit report is free though if you call the touch tone service and have your report sent in the mail.)
TransUnion

Other resources