On the first week of school, post-secondary students descending on Edmonton for another year of scholastic achievement will be bombarded with credit card offers, bar security, and potentially untrustworthy new roommates. Your personal information gets around, even if you don’t.

Some solicitation is perfectly legitimate marketing, says Alberta Privacy Commissioner Frank Work. But he warns that students should keep their personal information to themselves as much as possible, and always read the fine print before applying for any credit card, or giving up ID.

“The best rule of thumb is your Spidey sense,” he says. “If the deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

The affable guardian of Alberta privacy is himself the father of two college-aged kids, and offers these friendly hints for keeping your personal information as personal as possible while living the student life.

(1) In The Classroom

A lot of campuses offer wireless Internet, but Work warns that any banking you do online can easily fall into the wrong hands.

“While the prof is telling you about postwar Swedish monetary reform,” he jokes, “you can fiddle with your Facebook page or e-mail. But a lot of wireless sites aren’t protected, so don’t pass along your credit card numbers.”

(2) In The Dorm

Communal living also means communal garbage, so remember to tear up your bills before you throw them out.

Also, if you’re leaving your laptop or PDA around the dorm, you might want to encrypt sensitive information like passwords. If someone tries to hack into or steal these devices, it’s not hard to get past the basic passwords, and then it’s just a couple keystrokes into your bank account.

And those credit card come-ons that come flowing though the mailbox like liquid gold? Go ahead and apply if you need the credit, but make sure you know the company and read the fine print before you send it off.

When that magic money flood turns into a deluge of bills, read every line thoroughly, no matter how depressing. Often criminals will charge a small amount to your card as a probe, Work says, and then rack up a serious debt if you don’t alert your credit card company.

(3) At The Bar

The first trick to protecting your personal information when you’re out on the town is to travel light. Work recommends leaving your birth certificate, passport, and social insurance number at home. These are “foundation documents” that others can use to steal your identity, so never leave them all in one place.

The other potentially invasive part of your night can occur before you even enter the club.

Work is currently in court with SecureClub, a Calgary security group similar to BarLink here in Edmonton. Both systems scan patrons’ driver’s licences and keep them in a database.

Work thinks scanning licences is against the Personal Information Protection Act, the provincial legislation that protects privacy, but at this point it’s up to the courts to make a decision. In the meantime, students can refuse to have their ID scanned, although that usually means you’re not getting into that bar.

Driver’s licences carry a lot of information, including your address and picture. Of course, every club has strict rules about who can access that information, and bouncers can’t just hand out addresses to lovesick drunks. But the risk is there, Work says, and most fraud is about old-fashioned social engineering, so think twice before handing over your ID.

abrunschot@see.greatwest.ca