PurchasingB2B.ca | October 2016 | 15

Business 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 protectionIdentity 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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