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21st Century crime is all about identity fraud, criminals rummaging through your bin in hope of finding personal documents or letters that they can use to clone your identity and begin a shopping spree at your expense.

In recent years we have heard tales how banks were filling sacks with mail and sensitive documents they didn't need and were throwing them out in the back alley behind their office to be collected by the bin man. Government offices have also been found guilty of misplacing millions of highly sensitive records that included bank details of a large proportion of the countries population who were in receipt of benefits. Is there any wonder that identity theft is big business for the modern criminal?

We are all guilty of throwing away that mail shot from the bank that asks us if we would like a loan or credit card into our refuse bins, but is this really safe to do? Anyone who looks through our trash will be able to get our name and address details, not to mention who we bank with.

The criminal will then attempt to open other lines of credit or obtain legal documents like birth certificates or national insurance cards under the pretence that they have lost them. It is not as difficult as you may think to obtain a new birth certificate and once the criminal has it, along with other forms of identification that you threw in the bin, they can begin to open new lines of credit that you may be liable for.

Your credit file will take a huge dent and it will take many months of correspondence and stress to get the fraudulent items removed from your file. In the interim you will have no way of obtaining any form of credit facility due to these bogus items distorting how reliable you are to repay any borrowings.

The only safe way to properly dispose of paper documents is to shred them. Personal home shredder are a very affordable tool that gives complete peace of mind that nobody can steal your identity. Simply tearing up mail into smaller pieces is not secure enough as any criminal can re-attach the ripped up document to get the details they require. Large businesses actively shred all unwanted documents as the risk of leaking sensitive information could not only cost the company money but their reputation of integrity and security could lose them many new and existing clients.

Incinerating documents is also an acceptable secure form of destroying sensitive information but in many cases this is not practical. The everyday home owner doesn't want to be having little bonfires in the garden or yard every week to burn their sensitive documents. Large businesses who deal with a multitude of correspondence may choose to burn there unwanted documents if they so wish but most will use large shredding machines to protect themselves and their customer's private details.

Identity theft is real and it is happening right now and there is no reason why it can't happen to you. Be responsible when disposing with all mail and documents that you no longer require. Go out and buy a shredder and the security it will give you will more than cover the very small cost of purchase.

Learn more about this author, Neil Dixon.
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