Business

Safes can protect your possessions – and your identity

You don’t have to be a contortionist for safes to be able to protect you as an individual.

In an increasingly virtual world, our digital identities are rapidly becoming as important as our physical selves, and identity theft is a concern for many people.

But if you’re already alert to the risk of posting your postcode, date of birth and mother’s maiden name on social networking sites, take a moment to consider what might happen if your laptop or smartphone fell into the wrong hands.

And if you’re the type of person who instinctively answers ‘yes’ when the internet offers to remember your password, safes might be a wise investment to add physical security in place of the digital safeguards you lack.

Recent projections from Juniper Research predict a fourfold increase in the value of mobile payments made each year by 2017, making portable payments a trillion-dollar business in five years’ time.

But already, mortgage and savings fraud are on the rise, as a separate Experian report reveals.

While some of this fraud relates to individuals misrepresenting their own financial situation, third-party identity theft constitutes a massive 88% of all savings-related fraud.

Fraudulent savings account applications totalled 13 in every 10,000 made in the period between April and June 2012, a 109% rise over the previous year.

As more and more of us bank online – and go online using our mobiles and laptops – this figure may well be set to rise further due to poor security and automatically filled-in internet banking passwords.

Safes have long been a way to protect valuables of all kinds, but simply leaving your laptop or smartphone locked away while you’re asleep, or if you leave your gadgets behind while on holiday, is an excellent way to safeguard against physical theft and virtual identity fraud alike.

With many safes rated as suitable to protect goods up to a certain value, it’s also a good way to keep the gadgets themselves safe if your home is burgled.

Total Safes supplies a full range of safes to suit a wide range of security needs for both the home and the office which can be delivered and installed across the UK.