# Decimal Diary: Data leaks and credit reports

> Today's blog is a guest post by Lucy.

Dear Decimal Diary,

My personal details were leaked in two recent data breaches affecting [Qantas](https://www.qantas.com/au/en/support/information-for-customers-on-cyber-incident.html) and [Vietnam Airlines](https://www.vietnamairlines.com/vn/en/vietnam-airlines/press-room/press-release/2025/1014-EN-Information-Regarding-Customer-Data-Breach). Another batch of little pieces that might one day be reassembled into a pretend me, so they say.

I've read that it's not a bad idea to keep an eye on your official credit report in case someone steals your identity and applies for loans in your name. So today I tried out Johnny's idea of ['be a better human' time](https://jdcm.al/22.00.0136/) and did something I've been putting off for ages – I accessed my credit reports.

In Australia, I learned that there are [three companies](https://moneysmart.gov.au/managing-debt/credit-scores-and-credit-reports) dealing with identity and credit services:[^1]

- Experian,
- illion, and
- Equifax.

## Finding the stuff to create an account

First, I had to register for an account with each service. This meant providing things like drivers licence, passport, and Medicare details.[^2] In my personal system, this kind of thing is saved under `12.16 Medicare & government` and `33.11 Identity`.[^3] No worries.

## Saving the stuff they sent me

After the accounts were set up, requesting the credit reports was straightforward. I can get them sent every 3 months for free if I want (I've set a new reminder to do this). I've saved them in my filesystem in `11.26 Credit rating`, labelled by [year-month-day](/documentation/saving-files#sorting-by-year-month) so they sort.

## Other helpful cameos

Other Decimalised things involved in this '[P3](https://jdcm.al/22.00.0034/#p3-should-donice-to-do)' task include:

- The item that reminded me that I _actually really_ want to do this was saved in my `11 Money & tax` category in [Things](https://culturedcode.com/things/).
- New logins for the credit report companies were saved in my `11 Money & tax` category in [1Password](https://1password.com).
- Emails from the companies were filed in my `11.26 Credit rating` folder in Gmail.

This boring life admin task was made a bit less ominous thanks to my system, and I actually bloody did it.[^4]

From,  
Lucy

[^1]: Apparently if you're in this line of business you name your company as if it's an intergalactic science-fiction horse.

[^2]: Which didn't fill me with great confidence after remembering the [Equifax data breach of 2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Equifax_data_breach). Oh well.

[^3]: My ID numbers are artisanal because I built my Johnny.Decimal system in the [workshop](/jdu) before the [Life Admin System](/las/) was born. If I had Life Admin I'd be referring to: `11.12 Passports, residency, & citizenship`, `11.14 Licences`, `13.23 Government services`, and `13.13 My credit rating`.

[^4]: There was still swearing involved, but that was mostly due to poor wi-fi in our current location.