Identity Theft 101 – I shalt not publish passport numbers on the Internet.

One of the more obvious do-nots when it comes to avoiding Identity theft is to avoid publishing personal documents or information on the Internet for anyone to see.

And yes Vauxhall, that does include passport numbers.

The corporate sponsor of the England football team made somewhat of a blunder that would make any privacy activist wince, by tweeting an image of a document that contained the full passport numbers of the England football team who played Ecuador.

The passport numbers were published along with the birthdates of each player too. And to add insult to injury (there’s a football pun there somewhere) Frank Lampard even had his signature included on the list as well.

A persons date of birth, passport number and signature is, needless to say, gold dust to an identity thief, especially considering the wages these players are on.

Just a friendly reminder (not that our readers need it) is to perhaps avoid publishing documents containing personal information of other people on social media.

At least football pundit Gary Lineker saw the bright side…

England have never lost a World Cup in which the players' passport numbers were on a pre tournament friendly team-sheet.

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) June 4, 2014

Continued below...

Thanks for reading, we hope this article helped, but before you leave us for greener pastures, please help us out.

We're hoping to be totally ad-free by 2025 - after all, no one likes online adverts, and all they do is get in the way and slow everything down. But of course we still have fees and costs to pay, so please, please consider becoming a Facebook supporter! It costs only 0.99p (~$1.30) a month (you can stop at any time) and ensures we can still keep posting Cybersecurity themed content to help keep our communities safe and scam-free. You can subscribe here

Remember, we're active on social media - so follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram and X