Reducing How Much of You Is Available for a Scammer to Use
By the end of this lesson, you'll understand:
Every scam covered so far in this course depends on some amount of information about you, your name, your bank, your relationships, your habits. Reducing how much of that information is easily available doesn't make you invulnerable, but it meaningfully raises the effort required to target you specifically, and closes off entire categories of opportunistic fraud.
Personally identifiable information (PII) includes your full name combined with your Social Security number, date of birth, address, account numbers, or other details that could be used to impersonate you or access your accounts. Some information is sensitive on its own; other information becomes risky mainly in combination.
What to check: Consider not just individual pieces of information, but what someone could do if they combined several pieces you've shared across different places.
Your Social Security number is one of the most sensitive pieces of PII, since it's a key that unlocks credit accounts, tax records, and government benefits. Share it only when genuinely required (an employer, a financial institution, a government agency) and question any other request for it, even one that seems routine.
What to check: Ask why a specific business needs your full Social Security number, and ask whether a partial number or an alternative identifier would work instead, many businesses request it out of habit rather than genuine necessity.
Posts revealing your full birthdate, your mother's maiden name, your pet's name, your first car, or detailed travel plans can inadvertently provide answers to common security questions or details useful for a spear phishing attempt (covered in FPS103) or a romance scam profile.
What to check: Review your social media privacy settings periodically, and consider whether specific posts reveal information that overlaps with common security question answers.
Shred physical documents containing account numbers, Social Security numbers, or other PII before disposal, rather than throwing them away intact. Before disposing of or selling an old phone or computer, fully wipe the device using its official factory reset process, not just deleting individual files.
What to check: Confirm a factory reset actually removes your accounts and data, not just app icons, check your specific device's official instructions to ensure a complete wipe.
Preparing to sell his old laptop, Tomas initially just deletes his files and empties the trash folder, assuming that's sufficient. After researching proper disposal, he learns this leaves recoverable data behind, and instead performs a full factory reset following his device manufacturer's official instructions, confirming his accounts are fully signed out and the drive is wiped.
He also reviews an old social media post revealing his childhood pet's name, the exact answer to a security question on one of his financial accounts, and updates that account's security question to something not publicly discoverable.
Deleting files from my old phone or computer before selling it is enough to protect my information.
Simply deleting files often leaves data recoverable. A full factory reset following your device's official instructions is necessary to actually wipe personal information before disposal or resale.
There's no harm in sharing fun personal facts on social media, like childhood pets or first cars.
These exact details are commonly used as security question answers across many financial and email accounts. Publicly sharing them can inadvertently make an account easier to compromise.
Generally yes, if you called a verified, official number yourself, the risk primarily comes from providing it in response to an unsolicited contact, not from sharing it when you've confirmed who you're speaking with.
Employers, financial institutions, and government agencies typically have legitimate needs for it. Many other businesses (a retail store, a gym membership) generally don't, even if they ask as a matter of routine intake.
Not necessarily, the goal is thoughtful sharing, not total avoidance. Reviewing privacy settings and being mindful of specific detail types (birthdate, security-question-adjacent facts) addresses most of the risk without requiring you to disengage entirely.
Review your social media privacy settings today, and identify one piece of publicly shared information that overlaps with a security question you use elsewhere.
With personal information protection covered, the next lesson, FPS108: Creating Strong Account Security, builds on this by securing the accounts that information could otherwise unlock.
That's where Financial Confidence becomes your personal information exposure checker.
Financial Confidence can help you identify oversharing risks, track which businesses have your Social Security number and why, remind you to properly wipe old devices, and organize your document disposal habits.
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