As business owners, we owe it to our employees, clients and our communities to give a second thought to identity theft, before thieves do. Identity theft is not primarily a high-tech crime. Think of dumpster-diving, stolen wallets, credit cards or checkbooks. Think of postal fraud, theft of personal papers from cars, homes or businesses. A recent research reports shows that only 11.6 percent of identity theft crimes are committed on computers. Your business should be considering every measurable step to safeguard the information you handle each day. Here are the Top 4 Reasons Why:

1. To protect your own business by safeguarding proprietary information.
Embezzlement, theft, and other types of white-collar crime are easier in the information age. There are many different variables to utilizing stolen information about your business. In one case, a phony computer company stole the identity of a Computer Firm and used it to buy more than $100,000 worth of merchandise. In other cases thieves have gathered enough information to take on the identity of trusted businesses to target their customers.

2. To protect your customers' privacy and prevent identity theft.
Recent news coverage about the loss of customer information by large corporations underscores the potential risks of all businesses, including lawsuits and bad publicity. Consumer documents containing personal information can be harmful to both consumers and businesses, if they fall into the wrong hands. The most utilized information includes: insurance documents, medical & prescription drug information, old tax records and business records