Canada.com, through a story on Lifehacker offers some really helpful hints on how to protect yourself from identity theft. A lot of the advice is pretty common, such as keeping track of what personal information you are carrying around and being careful to avoid email scams. Here are a few tips that you may not have heard:

• When you visit an ATM, always type in a bad personal identification number (PIN) first. Doing so will ensure PIN validation and that the machine is really hooked up to the banking service.
• Having a credit card with a relatively small limit (say $250 to $500) instead of using your major card is a good way to protect yourself if the sale is too good
  to be true.
• …consider purchasing a cross-cut shredder. While that might seem extreme, consider that over 60 per cent of a person’s identity can be found in his or her garbage can.

They also mention not falling for spoofed telephone numbers through VoIP. To find out just how easy it is to do, you can try it here.

[The image is from Thief directed by Michael Mann]