How much identity protection coverage does your family actually need?

This post is sponsored by Equifax.

Most families have way more connected devices than they realize. Phones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, smart TVs, school devices, old phones... all those devices can carry personal information.

As your household’s digital footprint grows, so does the risk of identity theft and fraud. In 2024, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre received 9,683 identity fraud reports, the highest volume of any single fraud type that year. And while people aged 30–39 are most at-risk, identity fraud affects all age groups. Identity protection and security isn’t just an “adult” issue. For many households, it’s a family problem.

How much identity protection coverage does a family actually need?

A family needs enough protection to cover the people in the household and the devices they use.

Every family member with online accounts should be protected, as well as every device they use for email, banking, school portals, shopping, streaming, gaming, or social media. Don’t forget retired devices with saved passwords or payment details, since those can create risks like credit card fraud if they’re compromised.

What devices do families commonly forget to protect?

Families usually remember phones and laptops, but they often miss devices like tablets kids use for school, games, streaming, or video chats, plus old phones that still connect to wifi and have saved accounts and passwords. Gaming consoles can also store payment details, usernames, chat history, and subscriptions.

Smart TVs, smart home devices, and shared family computers can also be tied to email addresses, streaming accounts, school portals, or online shopping, so they should be protected too.

Is an individual or family identity protection plan right for you?

An individual plan may be enough if you’re covering one adult and only a few devices. But once your household has multiple people, shared accounts, or several connected devices, a family identity protection plan makes more sense, especially if you’re already paying for more than one individual plan.

A few signs it may be time to switch to a family plan:

• You have two adults who both need credit monitoring
• You have kids with their own devices or online accounts
• Your household has multiple connected devices
• You want parental controls and device protection in one place

Before you decide, it’s important to remember that if one adult is protected but the second adult isn’t (or the kids’ devices are left out), your household is likely still exposed.

Do kids need identity theft protection?

Kids can be affected by identity theft too. They may not have credit cards or loans, but they can still have personal information that fraudsters want.

These days, children have email addresses, school accounts, gaming profiles, and online portals with access to health information and Social Insurance Numbers. Because kids usually aren’t checking credit reports or watching for suspicious activity, fraud can go unnoticed for longer.

That doesn’t mean you need to panic every time your child downloads a game. But it does mean kids should be part of your household’s protection plan, especially once they have their own devices, accounts, or online activity.

What’s included in a family plan vs. an individual plan?

Individual plans usually focus on one adult. A family cyber protection plan is designed for households with more people, more devices, and more ways for personal information to be exposed.

That’s where an expanded household plan can be useful. Equifax Complete Protection for Family is a multi-layered credit and cybersecurity protection product that helps families protect their online activity, monitor for signs of identity fraud, and get support if identity theft happens.

It covers up to two adults and provides household protection with device protection, VPN, and parental controls for up to 10 devices.

For the two adults, the plan includes credit monitoring with alerts, daily access to an updated Equifax credit report and score, social media monitoring, password manager, and dark web monitoring. If personal information is found on the dark web, Equifax will send an alert so you can take steps to help protect your accounts.

If identity theft occurs, both adults have access to dedicated ID Restoration Specialists to help guide them through recovery. Both adults can also receive up to $1 million each in identity theft insurance to help cover the costs of identity restoration (not available for new product purchases in Quebec).

No identity protection service can prevent every scam or stop all fraud. But a family plan can help you monitor more of your household’s activity, protect more devices, and get support if something goes wrong.

The bottom line

It takes family identity theft protection to cover not only the people, but also the devices, accounts, passwords, and logins your household uses every day.

If your current plan only protects one adult and a few devices, but your household includes two adults, kids, and a growing pile of connected tech, it may be a good time to consider switching to a family identity protection plan in Canada.