As I first reported to you in 2014, the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was hacked by Chinese hackers who stole personal information of more than 21 million present and former federal employees as well as non-employees whose information was gathered by the OPM during the course of background investigations of federal employees. Following the data breach the OPM offered three years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.  Then in 2015, the program was expanded to ten years of coverage.  This present program is scheduled to expire in 2026.  Now, Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton and Dutch Ruppersberger have sponsored a bill that would extend the protection for the entire lives of the people affected by the data breach.

TIPS

It should be noted that none of the identity theft protection companies help you with the one best step you can take to protect yourself from identity theft which is to put a credit freeze on your credit report at each of the three major credit reporting agencies.  With a credit freeze on your credit report, even if someone has your personal information including your Social Security number, they cannot access your credit report for purposes of gaining credit or loans in your name.  This was emphasized by a 2019 report by the General Accountability Office (GAO) which indicated that a credit freeze, which can be done for free is the best thing you can do to protect yourself from identity theft. Here are links to each of them with instructions about how to get a credit freeze:

https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/                                                                                                                                                                                                                               https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

Even after freezing your credit reports, you should still regularly monitor them to look for indications of identity theft which you can now do for free on a weekly basis using this link https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action

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#opmdatabreach #creditfreeze

You can find information about how to put a credit freeze on your credit reports at each of the three major credit reporting agencies by going to the Archives section of Scamicide and putting in the words “credit freeze.”