1. PurchasingB2B.ca | October 2016 | 15
B
usiness travel is a necessary part
of many people’s professional
lives. But hitting the road for a
company involves risk—natural
disasters, geopolitical unrest, travel delays
and other perils have always existed.
More recently, however, mobile technol-
ogy has added additional risk in the form
of identity theft. “Now, everything has
personal information connected with it,
and our lives are on mobile phones,” says
Paige Schaffer, president and COO of
Generali Global Assistance.
Identity theft is a growing trend in
North America, she says, and in 2015
there was $15 billion in claims related to
identity theft in the US alone. Travellers
are more likely to fall victim, and even at
home identity theft is a concern with rates
increasing at certain times of the year
such as during holidays, Schaffer notes.
To combat this, Generali Global
Assistance offers a software-as-a-service
technology portal called Iris. Iris is based
on four pillars: prevention/protection;
monitoring; alerts and resolution. On
the protection side, the Iris portal offers
24/7 access to identity theft resolution
experts and educational resources. The
software guards against keylogging and
phishing, two common identity scams.
There’s also an online dashboard, as well
as identity and credit monitoring. Alerts
are sent if a client’s credit profile changes,
high-risk transactions are detected, cre-
dentials are compromised or in various
other instances. Iris’s experts handle the
system’s resolution piece. “If you get in
trouble, you want to have an expert that
knows their stuff,” Schaffer says.
Iris is sold as an employee benefit or
offered on a voluntary basis, Schaffer
says. It’s also offered to companies with
large distribution channels looking to
provide it as a service to customers. “If
you think about it from a travel purchas-
er’s standpoint, it is another type of duty
of care,” Schaffer says.
Tips for protection
Identity theft is all about the loss of per-
sonal information, says Matt Bradley,
regional security director for the
Americas at International SOS. The most
important document travellers carry is
their passport. He recommends keep-
ing your passport in your hotel and using
your driver’s license, or other document,
as identification. As well, clean out your
wallet or purse before taking a trip so
that if the worst does happen and it’s lost
or stolen, you minimize your exposure
and don’t lose any more than necessary.
A common scam, Bradley notes, is card
skimming at ATM devices. This involves
placing a device over the card slot. The
device saves the card information and the
perpetrator returns later to retrieve the
information. To minimize risk, Bradley
recommends using an ATM in a bank or
shopping centre where it’s more difficult
to place a device over the machine.
When it comes to identity theft occur-
ring from smart phones and laptops,
the risk level often corresponds to the
country—understanding the data risk
in various countries before travelling is
important, Bradley says. The likelihood
of the government copying informa-
tion from a laptop in, say, Mexico, is less
than for travellers in China. Depending
on the destination, it may be advisable to
ask your organization’s IT department
for a “clean” laptop that doesn’t carry
any company information. Regarding
smartphones, minimize the data stored
on them while travelling. Leaving your
phone at home—or switching SIM cards
while on the road—may also be options
if the information on it is especially sen-
sitive. As well, try fingerprint unlocking
rather than numerical code.
Credit cards are the most likely tar-
get for identity theft for travellers, so keep
an eye on your cards while on the road.
Keep a copy of your credit card num-
bers, bank name and related information
and report suspicious activity as soon as
possible. Bradley also recommends set-
ting notifications before travelling with
credit cards. As well, don’t give out too
much personal information while travel-
ling and don’t say too much if you go out.
That information can potentially be com-
promised in a number of ways.
There’s more risk regarding identity
theft now than even a few years ago. But
by taking precautions, business travellers
can minimize the risks for both them-
selves and their organizations. B2B
Mistaken Identity By Michael Power
Tips for business travellers
to minimize identity theft
risk on the road
“Now, everything has
personal information
connected with it, and our
lives are on mobile phones.”
—Paige Schaffer
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