LifeLock claims to be one of the biggest identity theft protection companies in the world and serves both individuals and businesses. The company is based in Tempe, Arizona and was founded in 2005. LifeLock is funded by private equity investment and venture funds and is currently being valued in excess of $40 million and is well-poised to earn the leadership position in identity theft protection services. With this said, the company is obviously doing something right but does its program work? Before answering this question it is important to understand what identity theft is and what types of protection are available.

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States and is taking center stage at the White House, many homes around the nation, and is also becoming a growing concern to businesses and individuals. The concept of what identity theft is can be put in quite simple terms where a thief gains access to your personal information such as social security number, drivers license number, birth date, address, or bank account numbers. Once a thief has this information there are numerous things they can use it for but in virtually all cases the end result is devastation for the victim and their credit history. This being the case, it is obvious that people need some type of protection but what is available?

Traditional identity theft services can be broken down into several categories such as credit monitoring services, identity theft insurance, or restoration services. Credit monitoring may give someone a false sense of security because by the time the monitoring service finds a problem, the identity of the client has already been compromised. Insurance and restoration services are also reactionary and do nothing to prevent the crime as they are designed to help consumers after they have become victims. Identity theft insurance reimburses you for the costs of restoring your identity and a restoration service will often provide a representative to handle the time consuming aspect of restoring your credit.

While identity theft insurance and restoration services can be a big help to someone that has fallen victim to identity theft, a more ideal solution would be a program that prevents the theft in the first place. LifeLock is said to be different because it is a system designed to prevent your identity from being stolen rather than reporting it after the fact. The company claims that it is so confident with their service that their CEO commonly publishes his own social security number because he knows his identity is safe. To guarantee this high-quality protection, LifeLock hires companies to continually try to break into the system. If LifeLock is so effective then we must wonder how it works.

LifeLock claims to maintain locks on your credit file and keeps the locks current as they will normally expire every 90 days. The company also removes your name from pre-approved credit card offers. LifeLock offers two separate plans, one for business and the other one for individuals. For individuals, LifeLock charges a per-person monthly fee and has a discount for your children and is now said to be offering free and reduced cost to veterans. Businesses too have experienced similar success with LifeLock in terms of protecting the identities of its employees. While it is easy to see how LifeLock can benefit a large business and does work for an individual, cant someone simply do everything on their own to avoid the monthly charge?

Other then the fact that LifeLock employs Identityguard which monitors your credit reports monthly which you can't do for free, there is nothing else that LifeLock does that an individual cant do on there own. The LifeLock program is basically a service of convenience that offers the customer a sense of security without the stress of taking care of all the little details of securing their identity not to mention remembering to keep the alerts active when they run out. In todays world it is obvious that we all need some type of protection from identity theft and whether you decide to take care of it on your own or choose a program such as LifeLock is not as important as taking some type of action to protect yourself.