Keeping your information secure

Emails 

• If you have online access to your pension and/or investments, we’ll not send emails asking you to re-confirm your password or your personal information for ‘security purposes’
• Don’t respond to emails like this. If you do, you may be giving the sender important information that could lead to fraudulent activity
• Our email system and the way we deal with data internally is secure. However, we're unable to ensure the security of emails before they reach us so please consider this and do not include any personally sensitive, financial or banking information that hasn't been appropriately secured
• Beware of ‘phishing scams’ - if you ever receive an email from someone you don’t know, be careful not to click on any links or attachments, as they may install harmful software on your device

Password 

Your passwords are the keys to your personal information. You should keep them secure and not share them with anyone (even with friends, family or your financial adviser). You should also make sure all your passwords are ‘strong’. In other words, they should:

1. Be hard to guess
2. Appear random
3. Include a mixture of upper and lower case characters
4. Include numbers and special characters
5. Be at least eight characters long (longer passwords are generally harder to crack)
6. Consider using a “Passphrase” rather than a “password” combine 3 random words and introduce special characters, upper/lower case letters and numbers

It’s also good practice to reset your passwords every so often and have different passwords on different internet sites.

If you think the security of your account may have been compromised you should change your account password as soon as possible.

Social media 

Communicating by social media is a way of life, however it can also be a valuable source of information for fraudsters. To protect yourself and your information:

1. Never give out your financial details on a social networking site
2. Change your passwords regularly
3. Always read social networking sites' privacy policies
4. Review your privacy settings - change them if they don't give you enough privacy
5. Remember that people you don't know might be able to see your profile and anything you publish
6. Be careful about the amount of personal information you publish, including any travel plans that you or your family make
7. Create a separate email address just for social network sites
8. Be cautious about meeting people you’ve contacted on social networking sites in person - they may not be who they seem

Personal details 

Let us know about any changes to your personal details, for example when you get married, move house or change your nominated bank account, so that payments and correspondence reach the correct destination. Out-of-date information may cause delays.