Americans increasing protections of privacy, personal information

By Stephen Pounds

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 02, 2005 Consumers are revving up their shredders.

A new Harris Interactive survey on personal information protection for Delray Beach-based Office Depot shows Americans are going to greater lengths to protect their private data.

Two-thirds of those surveyed shred credit-card offers and their bills.

• More than one-third bring their mail to the post office rather than leaving it unattended in their mailbox.

• A quarter of them shield the ATM screen at banks.

• A quarter of them don't sign the back of their credit card so sales clerks will check their identification.

In another surprising trend, 7 percent of respondents use only cash for purchases so there's no paper trail.

"Very recently have people made the switch back to cash because of the issue of making all this credit information available. There's a lot of interest in this," spokeswoman Heather Govern said.

The survey was a national poll of 1,962 people for the giant office supply chain for last week's National Small Business Week