Top > Sport > 2006 > February > 2006-02-06

Identity Theft and Super Bowl Celebrations

What do the Super Bowl and identity theft have in common? The answer lies in the ticker tape parade. The parade is a tradition that occurs in the city of the winning team, which in this case will either be Pittsburgh or Seattle. Shredded documents to be used in this parade may contain personal and valuable information that have the potential to land in the hands of a crook. ShredStation, a document destruction company, today issued a warning to consumers across the United States that their sensitive documents may end up in the hands of ticker tape parade goers in Pittsburgh or Seattle next week.

Over 20,000 pounds of paper was shredded for the most recent ticker tape parade in Chicago celebrating the World Series title. More paper is normally used for a Super Bowl parade, and in most cases no one is accountable for what may be on the shredded paper that fills the air during the parade. The first ticker tape parade was held on October 28, 1886, in New York to celebrate the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. Wall Street was the only area of the city working that day. As the parade passed by, workers from the hundreds of windows above began unreeling the spools of tape that record the messages of the ?ticker? filling the air with white steamers.

Today, filling the air with paper to celebrate an important event remains a treasured tradition. But the paper used in modern ticker tape parades is not the innocent empty spools of tape from years past. It can provide thieves and scam artists all the information they need to steal an identity ? a crime that claims 8.9 million American victims every year at a cost of $56.6 billion. According to a recent study by Javelin Research and Strategy, 63 percent of identity theft can be prevented by consumers subject to the crime. To protect your identity, ShredStation recommends using a certified shredding service that cross-cuts sensitive material into tiny pieces and recycles it immediately, keeping it out of the hands of dangerous identity thieves.