I read an article this week about identity theft by theft of personal information by employees. That’s been going on for years (likely how my Social Security number was compromised) but now the increase in linked data means when something fails, more goes down with it.
Here’s the article:
Can we trust anyone with our personal info?
That made me consider something I’ve been doing when I travel domestically: I don’t use my Drivers License as an ID. It has my address on it, something the person at the security checkpoint has no reason to know. Since I already keep all my travel-related documents/cards together in one place, I just grab that and use my passport. Sure, someone could still look up my address if they had access to the right database (an airline employee certainly would, not sure about TSA.) But it wouldn’t be just sitting there for anybody to see. (In my case they would only get my mailing address, but still.)
And now, since I have the Global Entry card, I use that because it doesn’t show my birth state (which can be used to validate other information like certain Social Security numbers.)
