Traveling on Vacation? Help Protect Your Identity

Whether you're taking off on a cross-country road trip, catching a flight to someplace tropical or planning a railway excursion through Europe, traveling can increase your risk of being targeted for identity theft. While traveling this summer, here are some tips to help you better guard your identity. 

Things to do before hitting the road:

• When booking your reservations for you travel, including transportation, lodging and other activities, make sure you're using a secure and reputable site.
• Resist posting every detail of your upcoming trip on social media. While your friends may enjoy it, it could also lead to ill-intentioned individuals taking advantage of an empty house.
• Resist sending "Out of Office" auto-reply e-mails. This too can alert ill-intentioned individuals that you are away from home. Instead, see if you can have someone else keep an eye on your e-mails.

Things to do while on vacation:

• Guard critical documents, like driver's licenses, personal IDs and passports (if traveling abroad) in a safe place while traveling.
• Update your password protections and other layers of securityon mobile devices like phones, tablets and laptops, as suggested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security..