Why is my data so valuable? What are scammers going to do with it?
Thanks for your question. Here’s Delia Rickard:
Delia: That data is valuable because it can help somebody impersonate you, you know, to open a bank account etc. you need the 100 points of data about the person.
If you have enough data about a person, you can open accounts in their names, run up debts in their names. I mean bank accounts, energy accounts, telco accounts — the whole lot.
So this is why it’s really really important to protect your data. If you have enough data too, you can sometimes also access other important accounts such as the myGov account, such as your banking account, so it is essential safeguard your data.
And it should be said too, that in this day and age, scammers can buy parcels of data from all over the place. So even if they don’t have everything in one data breach, they can purchase more data to get a fuller picture of you and the words you use as pass codes etc.
