Bumper Stickers, Burglaries, and Garage Door Openers: Unveiling the Changing Face of Crime

Some time ago I wrote about the items on your vehicle that clearly show personally identifiable information (PII). The volume of information you can glean from limited sources should give anyone pause and it is rarely considered.

A quick refresher, below:

Life Finds a Way...

As if the bumper stickers didn't reveal enough about your personal life, now criminals have evolved into new tactics that are more creative and potentially more impactful.

Time for a Vacation

Imagine you've been looking forward to this vacation for months. Careful planning, detailed itineraries, luggage packed for all occasions, all forward thought. Doors and windows are locked, checked and re-checked, your neighbors know you will be away, you've stopped the mail, etc. You park your car at the airport, carry your luggage and get ready for a relaxing time. It's vacation time!

After you've thoroughly relaxed on your trip, you make the journey home- the allure of your own bed and comfort of your own home beckons. When you return, your car isn't where you originally parked it. Odd? How did that happen? After some jet lag and a long day you shrug off this oddity and convince yourself that you just remembered your parking space wrong. As you pull into your driveway, you go to press the garage door opener and notice it is gone. Did it fall down in the car? Did you misplace it? Worse....

The "Wet Bandits"

In a nod to a classic Christmas movie, "Home Alone", the antagonists are seen at the start of the movie asking if people will be home over the Christmas holiday under the guise of increasing police patrols in the neighborhood. Their intention is to highlight locations where people are going to be away so that they can burglarize and steal the contents of the home without interruption.

Going back to our scenario, you arrive home, find no garage door remote and enter the house only to find it has been ransacked. Things are out of place, drawers are open, and you begin to rush throughout the house to understand what has happened. The other car, that should be in the garage, is also missing. You notice items are missing, electronics and other high-value items- gone. How could this happen? You were so careful, planned every detail.

Evolving Methods

Does this sound far fetched to you? This imaginary scenario above is all too real to a Salt Lake City Family. Their vacation was ruined when they left their car in airport parking. It was subsequently broken into and the criminals used the registration paperwork to determine the home's location. They drove to the home, used the garage door opener that was conveniently left behind for them, and then broke into the home. They then proceeded to ransack the house looking for valuables. They returned the original car to the wrong spot and then kept the second car for some time. It was recovered after being tracked by a vehicle GPS system to a nearby park.

More information on the case, from local news, in the video below:

What is inside your car, particularly when it is going to be left unattended for a duration of time is just as telling (mores in many instances) than what you put on the exterior of the car. You have an expectation that things inside your car are secure, but you're taking the chance that someone could break into your vehicle and have access to a plethora of information. When your car is at the airport, people know you won't be back quickly giving them ample time to plan. Your choice of parking spot makes it even easier! Long term parking is much cheaper, but it also illustrates that you will likely be gone for some time, giving thieves a much larger window to work. We spend hours in our vehicles, they become an extension of ourselves, but they're also a treasure trove of PII to the wrong people.

How to Protect Yourself

Just like the exterior of your car, limit what PII you leave in your vehicles- particularly if they will be unattended for some period of time. This includes:

• Registration & Insurance forms
• Any other papers with your address. Junk mail is often overlooked and tossed aside
• Take out any garage door openers
• Take out keys and other items that might be used to gain access to your home or other spaces.
• Park in high foot traffic areas where possible.
• Ensure neighbors know that any activity in the house should be reported ASAP.

Conclusions

Now that the world has opened up after so long, people are traveling in greater number and to far-off destinations the criminal element has noticed this and is evolving their methodology. We need to make it harder for them to achieve their goals. After all, the last thing anyone needs after a long vacation is to come home to that nightmare scenario. Don't make it easy on them. No one wants to spend their whole vacation worried someone has broken into their home.