In the modern world, proving your identity is everything. Identification documents are required by a wide range of authorities and service providers with access to your bank accounts and most other aspects of normal life dependent on proving just who you are.
Since you are a prepper – preparing for any eventuality – what are you going to do if some natural or manmade disaster or emergency leaves you without access to those vital documents or even results in them being destroyed?
It’s better to do as much as you can to prevent your problems from happening in the first place. Here’s how:
- make time to digitally scan (or take good quality photos of, on your smartphone) the important documents held by you and your family members – such as bank account details, birth certificates, insurance policies, passports, and driving licences;
- send the scanned documents to yourself – to be doubly secure, upload them to some sort of Cloud based storage too;
GOV.UK Verify
- in Britain, we are especially fortunate in having a well-developed online official channel through which it is possible to maintain a permanent proof of your identity;
- this is the GOV.UK Verify platform where you can set up a personal account just one time and use those verified details to access and prove your identity across all the major government departments;
- more than three million people already use Verify and it can be used in your dealings with – including applications for hard copies of documents – government departments such as the Home Office, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA);
- because it’s a government website, Verify complies with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), ensure your personal privacy, and meets the highest anti-fraud standards;
Protect your passwords
- proving your identity online – practically, as important as holding the physical proof of identity – invariably relies on your entering a valid password;
- you have probably already discovered just how many passwords you’re using in even relatively normal use of the internet – and, for security’s sake, each password needs to be unique and difficult to crack;
- since it’s impossible to remember them all, you might have written them out and included the list in your grab bag – but will that scrap of paper survive and, in any case, does it remain at all secure if it’s vulnerable to theft or prying eyes;
- your best bet, therefore, is likely to be a digital password manager – which not only safely stores all those you use but can also generate strong and unique passwords;
- PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice for 2021 password managers is the MyKi Password Manager and Authenticator.
Be prepared. So, make sure you’ve backed up copies of important identity documents by mailing them to yourself, arranging cloud storage, signing up to GOV.UK Verify, and using a password manager.
Finally, even though you have digital copies, don’t forget the importance of keeping the actual, physical documents safe. Keep all your documents in a fireproof bag – you can get these quite cheaply on Amazon.
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