Club Benefits
IDShield is one of the best identity theft protection services and is known for providing solid, basic coverage for those looking for entry level monitoring of banking and investment accounts, credit reports, identity theft assistance and identity insurance, dark web monitoring and other alerts that may indicate that someone has run off with either some of your personal information or worse yet, your whole identity.
However, one of its best hidden features – and the reason it’s our pick for best for privacy – is its Reputation Manager service. Basically, this feature cans multiple social media profiles and will not only highlight any potentially inappropriate posts or photos you may want to remove but it will also help you easily delete them.
Why you want to scrub your social media profiles
IDShield says that, according to its surveys, the service's average customer has over 1,500 posts and photos on Facebook alone – and most people have multiple social media accounts that span decades. Likewise, the average person has over 100 online accounts and apps to go with them, so you may have shared a lot of details about your personal life across them.
Think for a moment about what you may have posted on your profile page five, eight or ten years ago and how different of a person you were then. Think about the people you knew, how you spent your time and what you’re trying to accomplish now, what kind of jobs you want to get hired for, who you want to date, what kind of apartments you’re applying for.
Having all that data exist online isn't just a potential drawback when it comes to something embarrassing, or as a strike against you personally. It can also be a privacy risk. Old data that exists online can tell people too much about you, which can be used for identity theft, fraud, phishing or more.
What IDShield’s Reputation Manager does
IDShield's Reputation Manager will review social media accounts including Facebook, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and reddit, and then assist you with identifying what you may want to remove by flagging anything that it sees as potentially damaging to your reputation. It provides a Personal Score and recommendations for what may need a review, but it will also help you to easily delete or archive older posts and photos.
The Reputation Manager looks for particular things to flag in photos and text posts. For photos, the service will highlight weapons, ‘racy’ imagery, adult content and drugs or alcohol. In text posts, it is searching for profanity, inflammatory or toxic content, and negative comments that are directed at an individual or group.
It then tags the posts as either medium or high risk, and will include a reason as to why the post was flagged. You get to decide whether to delete, archive or approve the content. You can select items to delete from a specific date range, search for a photo or post by putting in a place, category or keyword.
The tool can also help you review your online privacy, by giving you a walkthrough of how you can set your visibility and ad preferences in the settings menus. This will limit how social media companies (and third-parties) can use your data which also limits your exposure and risk during data breaches, and limits your online footprint with data brokers. That means less of your addresses, medical data, legal issues, employers, school records and more are for sale or publicly available online.
An ongoing process
The last helpful step that IDShield's Reputation Manager takes is to help you move forward in the right direction by building a positive reputation. The walkthrough guides also provide step by step instructions to improve social media profiles with recommendations on how to write your own posts that share your expertise and professional interests.
The tool will even help you gain visibility and make your profile more polished and professional, so that it is noticed for the right reasons by potential landlords, employers, schools or whomever is searching the internet for your name. It can also help you build your network by suggesting contacts, companies and other leaders who are knowledgeable about your industry and trends.
Finally, it provides you with a Personal Score so you know how well your various efforts have helped your online appearance, and offers regular rescanning so you know if future posts have had any impact.
Identity theft protection is a great investment on its own but this useful feature is a compelling reason why you might want to choose IDShield over the competiton.
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