Data Privacy in a Digital Era: How to Protect Your Phone, Identity & Credit Card Info from Being Hacked

Last Updated on October 2, 2023

Do you travel? Ever work or relax at a coffee shop? How about just running errands or attending local events?

With all of these activities, at least one thing is always guaranteed. You will have your cell phone and credit cards with you. And why is this an issue? Because it leaves you open to digital theft and tracking.

Old school pick-pocketing may never go away, but of even greater concern today is protecting our personal and financial information as data tracking and stealing becomes omnipresent in our digital lives. As we enter a 5G world where all this data is traveling on the same frequencies, there will be more and more risk of breach.

In fact, in 2019, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to restrict the 5G rollout, citing “national security, civil service, and the economic benefit of the nation” as the reasons. He claimed the granting of the license has “the potential for widespread disruption and degradation of GPS services.”

Mark Steele, an inventor and 5G critic, said that spying on people while in households or on the streets will be possible, due to 5G waves being used across the board, from driverless cars, to microwaves, to streetlights.

Smart Phone Tracking

Did you know that your smartphone – if you have location tracking on for ANY app, including weather – is sending pings out that location-tracking companies are collecting?

The New York Times acquired one of these large datasets from an anonymous employee at one of these unregulated and under-scrutinized tracking companies. The one file holds more than 50 billion locations from more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A search through this information could find who visited celebrity residences, the Playboy Mansion, and other private places, forever connecting your identity to these places.

Sadly, this one file is just a small look at what’s collected and sold every day by the location tracking industry. 

But guess what? It’s actually perfectly legal to collect and sell this information in the United States and other places in the world. According to the NYT, only internal company policies and the decency of individual employees prevent those with access to the data from abusing it for personal reasons. And while the companies say the data is only shared with vetted partners, what we don’t know can’t hurt us… right? We are choosing to take their word for it because we don’t know of a better option, where we can use our smartphone and all its splendid and convenient apps without having our location known.

William Staples, founding director of the Surveillance Studies Research Center at the University of Kansas says: “the companies collecting this location information act as what I have called Tiny Brothers, using a variety of data sponges to engage in everyday surveillance.”

Vulnerability of Credit Cards and Cell Phones

Digital pick-pocketing is the ability of hackers to steal your personal and financial information electronically by hacking into your cell phone or stealing you credit card information.

An estimated 70% of credit cards will soon be vulnerable to digital pick-pocketing. The cards that are primarily at risk are enabled with RF technology which allows you to “wave and pay.”

Thieves are using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and NFC (Near Field Communication) wireless signals to steal credit card numbers.

RFID and NFC readers can be bought online or downloaded to a personal cell phone via an app – making easy access for almost ANYONE to obtain a reader. But exactly how easy is it for a thief to get your information while never actually laying hands on either of your credit cards or cell phone?

Standing within six inches (think crowded subway, checkout line, or person near you at the ATM) is all that’s needed for a thief to swipe your data in transaction within a matter of seconds. The criminal can then use an inexpensive machine to replicate your card and sell it on to others. And don’t be too quick to dismiss this by thinking “I don’t use that feature.” Even if you still swipe your credit cards, they are probably coded with RF technology whether you use it or not.

Along with data theft, identity theft is one of the most pervasive crimes in modern society.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are more than 16 million reported cases a year in the United States alone. This costs Americans about $25 billion in direct and indirect losses with an average cost of $1,769 a person.

One of the easiest ways for criminals to steal personal information is by hacking cell phones. Cell phones of today contain our financial information, personal details, where we have been, who we know, our phone calls, messages and much more. A cell phone is a criminal gold mine.

When you are travelling with your cell phone, you may be at most risk.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind while traveling with your cell phone.

• If you have WiFi and Bluetooth enabled (which we don’t recommend, disabling this feature will help to reduce direct radiation exposure from the cell phone), put you cell phone in airplane mode or make sure “Discoverable” mode is disabled.
• Clear your Internet browser after each use: delete history files, caches, cookies, and temporary internet files.
• If your cell phone, tablet, or laptop is stolen, report it immediately to the local US Embassy or Consulate.
• Upon returning home, the FCC recommends that one consider safety measures such as changing passwords for your laptop/tablet and smartphone.

How to Protect Your Privacy

DefenderShield has worked to tackle the problem of personal security and privacy in our new age digitized world. The result is the ConcealShield Privacy, Anti-Theft, Anti-Spying & EMF Protection Travel Pouch.

When you’re on the go, and more importantly when you are traveling, we recommend carrying your cell phone, credit cards, and other valuable items on you at all times, stored away in the ConcealShield, which is the best faraday pouch ever developed.

The ConcealShield is a compact travel pouch which incorporates DefenderShield’s industry-leading, EMF shielding technology, capable of completely blocking all incoming and outgoing signals. This means you can place your cell phones, credit cards or any other trackable items into the ConcealShield pouch making them undetectable, total invisible to the outside world.

Below are some highlights of the ConcealShield Privacy Pouch.

ConcealShield Features:

• Intrusion-proof, 360° EMF shielding completely blocks 100% all incoming and outgoing wireless transmissions, including RFID, NFC, Mobile, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth.
• Anti-theft technology helps secure data of trackable items like cell phones, credit cards and passports.
• Helps thwart hacking, snooping and tracing to maintain privacy.
• Protects from EMF radiation to minimize health risks.

In this day and age of repeated computer hacks, rampant identity theft and mass surveillance, protecting our security and privacy is not a suggestion, but a requirement. Don’t leave yourself vulnerable. Learn more about the ConcealShield Faraday Bag.

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