Don't Answer That Question

• What celebrity do you most resemble?
• What was the first name of your prom date?
• What was the name of the street you grew up on?

These are questions that are probably trivial to answer by a friend, and not much harder for a stranger with a small amount of information. These are the questions my bank wants me to use to “secure my identity”.
There’s a really easy way around this. Keep a notebook or journal with made up answers to these questions. I use random strings and 1Password, but you could do almost anything and it would be better than using the right answers to these questions.

• What celebrity do you most resemble? tuxPyJwN
• What was the first name of your prom date? jTnUGB
• What was the name of the street you grew up on? GGIZj4

Occasionally someone might ask you for an answer to this question over the phone. This is always a little fun, but you just have to be prepared to say “I’m about to read you a string of letters and numbers, are you ready?”. I’ve never encountered any problems with this.

3rd February 2016