The risks of outdated data

While no business wants to send communications to deceased individuals, it can happen unintentionally without regular updates and maintenance of customer information. Outdated records in your database can cause distress to grieving families and expose your business to potential fraudulent activity.

Criminals can exploit outdated records to commit identity theft, using deceased information to obtain credit, open new accounts, or even steal personal data. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, over 30% of Australians have been victims of identity crime, with 20% having experienced misuse of personal information within the past year. 

Even a single piece of personal data can be enough for criminals to construct false profiles or synthetic identities.

Verify Australian death records instantly

Protect your brand and safeguard your customers with the Australian Death Check by Equifax. This data cleansing service verifies your customer data against Australia's official source of death information, helping you identify deceased individuals and prevent sensitive communications from reaching them. Additionally, it can help you identify deceased accounts with outstanding balances sitting in arrears or collections, reducing financial losses and administrative burden.

Equifax can combine the Australian Death Check with identity, fraud and credit checks to help businesses keep their customer databases up to date.

Benefits of cleansing your data with Australian Death Check

By removing deceased records, you can:

  • Avoid sending insensitive communications to grieving families.
  • Reduce the risk of identity crime and protect your customers' personal information.
  • Strengthen compliance with adherence to Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes.
  • Improve marketing strategies by flagging and removing deceased customer records.
  • Protect your brand reputation from potential harm.

Contact an Equifax specialist to learn more about Australian Death Check and how our data cleansing solutions can be tailored to solve your data management challenges.
 

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