illion Credit Protect allows you to access your credit report information via a secure online portal. You can also receive email notifications to alert you when certain changes occur on your credit file. As an additional protection, you can also receive an alert if the email address you use to register for illion Credit Protect is identified as being compromised in a known data breach.

To register for illion Credit Protect:

1. Click here to go to the registration form.
2. Enter your email address, password and unique token. Please note that your unique, single use token can only be used to set up one Credit Protect user.
3. Complete your information, and activate your account to see your credit report and to monitor your credit information.

The unique sign-up token you received is only valid for one-time use to set up one Credit Protect user.

Ensure you have entered the unique token characters correctly. If it does not work, please contact the institution who provided you with this unique token.

An Australian passport or driver’s licence is the most common form of identification, so we use these to authenticate your registration. You can also use a Medicare card or an international passport.

You can still register manually (without any of these forms of ID) by selecting the option “None of the above” as the Proof of ID type upon registration and supplying accompanying documents online.

Your credit information is made up of details about your credit activity that is supplied to illion by credit providers such as banks, financial institutions and utilities. It also includes information that may be publicly available from ASIC and the courts.

Your credit information includes your history of credit enquiries, any defaults, court judgments and how much credit you have (such as a mortgage or credit cards), as well as some repayment information and your credit score.

Your credit score is generally a number between 0 and 1,000 and indicates how credit-worthy you are and how likely you are to pay your bills on time. Your credit score is used by banks and other lenders when you apply for credit.

If you find something on your credit report that you think is incorrect, you can raise a correction request via the ‘Help’ section available under your profile details on the top right-hand corner of the screen.

illion is a long-established credit reporting body that’s been operating in Australia since 1887. We have a large team of people collecting information directly from companies you do business with, such as banks and utility companies.

Credit providers such as banks, telcos and utility companies want to know that customers have a good track record and are likely to pay their bills on time. credit reporting bodies like illion collect this information to help these companies make better informed decisions about lending.

You can read more about credit reporting agencies and your rights and privacy here.

You can help protect yourself against the risks of identity theft by staying on top of your credit information.

Suspicious entries in relation credit enquiries or new credit accounts or changes to your personal information that are not made by you should be investigated promptly. It’s a good idea to check your credit report regularly so you can identify changes, errors or suspicious activity.

If your personal or financial details have been fraudulently used, here’s a few steps you can take straight away to limit the damage and protect yourself from further loss.

1. Check your credit report on illion Credit Protect
2. Ban your credit report from being used while you remain concerned about fraud risks (request a ban be placed on your credit report)
3. Change your online password, making sure to use different passwords for all your accounts.
4. Contact your financial institution
5. Recover your stolen identity – contact ID-Care (a free government service)
6. Report a Scam via the ACCC Scamwatch website

You can find more useful resources here:
Scamwatch - https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/about-scamwatch/tools-resources/online-resources
MoneySmart - https://moneysmart.gov.au/banking/banking-and-credit-scams

If you believe someone has fraudulently used your personal information, you can request illion to place a ban on your credit report.

The initial ban period is 21 days, but can be extended if needed. During the ban period, illion may not share your credit report unless you provide consent in writing or if required by law. If a credit provider requests your credit report to assess your application for credit, illion will explain there is a ban in place and will not provide the report to the credit provider unless you have consented in writing. However, credit providers will still be able to provide illion with information.

If you wish to seek credit during this time, you can consent to the release of your credit reporting information during the ban period.

Before the ban expiry date, you can request an extension of the ban period by providing us with sufficient evidence in support of your request. If we do not receive this information and evidence before the ban expiry date, we will be unable to extend the ban period.

Request a ban be placed on your credit report

If you’ve never applied for credit, you probably won’t have a credit score. However, the majority of people have a credit history and credit score.

If you’re under 18, you’re more likely to not have a credit score, as you need to have had a credit card, utility account or similar, which doesn’t usually happen until you’re an adult.

In October 2023, illion launched their new credit score and updated the methodology used to calculate the credit score. Most consumers’ scores will have changed in October 2023 because of this update. For most users, the score change will be because of the updated methodology and not because of a change to the underlying credit data illion holds about the user. The same factors that were used in the old score are also used in the new score, such as score increases for on-time payments and score decreases for late payments, but with different weightings between old and new score.

A zero score
If you have a score of zero, there’s something negative on your file, such as a payment default. You might have a court judgment or bankruptcy. But you don’t need something that drastic to push your score down – even late payments look really bad to companies you want to get credit from. You probably have a few credit enquiries on your file, which means you’ve applied for credit and may have been declined.

As you build up a good credit history your score will change to reflect this. Unfortunately there’s no magic bullet and you will need to work at this over the next two years or more.

1 – 299
If you’re here you probably have payment defaults or other negative data on your file).

If you don’t have defaults or other negative data such as a bankruptcy, then you may have a poor payment history (for example, late payments). You could also have a high number of credit enquiries, especially recent ones and for small amounts. This is likely to mean you’ve applied for credit and been declined.

300 – 499
If your score is between 300 and 499, it still needs improving, but you probably won’t have anything really negative (defaults, late payments, judgments, ) on your file.

It could be that you are in the younger age bracket, which lenders see as a bit riskier, and you may have recently applied for one or more smaller credit facilities or to credit providers that offer services to higher risk customers.

500 – 699
A score like this means there’s probably not much information available about your credit history, which probably means there’s nothing significantly negative.

It could also mean that your good history with your current credit provider is not yet being reported (credit reporting bureaus don’t yet have all the information from all credit providers).

Your score could also be impacted by your age or where you live - your credit score is generally higher the older you get.

700-799
If this is you, you’re probably paying your bills on time, but you might have a number of credit enquiries or applications for loans against your name. You might also be fairly new to credit, which means your credit history might not be long enough to put you in the ‘excellent’ category.

800-1000
Scoring in this range will often be associated with being in the older age groups, having been fairly disciplined with your credit applications , having a mortgage and/or an investment property. Constantly and consistently making payments on time throughout your credit history has a big impact on your score as well.

You can end up with a low score for many reasons, such as if you fail to pay your bills, if you pay them late, if you apply for credit too often or even if your partner defaults on a debt that was in joint names.

Your score is determined by how you pay your bills. People who have clear evidence of paying their bills on time will have higher credit scores than people who regularly pay their bills late or not at all.

Here are some ways you can improve your score:

• Make sure you check out your full credit history to ensure what’s there is correct.
• Make sure you pay any credit products or bills on time - you can set up automatic transfers or direct debits to make sure you don’t.
• Put a plan together with the credit provider or collection agency handling it to pay it back.
• Adjust your need for credit and spending for the next few years building up a good history of not requiring credit.
• Put some time into establishing a budget, use a prepaid mobile, and try to save for items rather than using credit.

There are a few reasons why your credit score can change, even though it doesn’t look like anything has changed in your credit history.

Some of the reasons your credit score may change include:

1. Since data is only held on your credit file for a certain amount of time, information can ‘drop off’ your credit file as it gets older, which can change your credit score.
2. How old your credit information is can also have an effect on your score – for example, a recent loan enquiry is more relevant than one you made four years ago.
3. Credit providers sending monthly payment data to a credit bureau can also affect your score, as changes in the payment status of your account(s) happen. Even if you’ve been paying on time, the length of time you’ve been up to date could have an influence on your score.

Using illion Credit Protect to check your credit score and see your credit history has no impact on your credit score.

Credit alerts will be sent to you via e-mail, to the e-mail address linked to your Credit Protect account. You may wish to add Credit Protect to the safe sender list in your mailbox.

Upon receiving a credit alert e-mail, log in to the Credit Protect portal to review the relevant section in your credit report. Suspicious entries in relation to credit enquiries or new credit accounts or changes to your personal information that are not made by you should be investigated promptly. It’s a good idea to check your credit report regularly so you can identify changes, errors or suspicious activity.

There are several reasons why you might not recognise the company or breach name:

• The site may have changed names or been sold to a new company.
• It could be an old account you forgot about.
• Someone may have created an account using your details.
• A data aggregator was breached. These companies collect your information from other sources. Data aggregators compile publicly available data and buy customer data from other companies. You may have an account with a company that sold your information to a data aggregator.

Your information may have been compromised overseas and different countries have different reporting obligations.

Sometimes it takes a while for companies to discover a breach. It can sometimes take months or years for credentials exposed in a data breach to be made public.

We will alert you as soon as a breach is discovered, verified and available to us.

Your email address would be part of the compromised information.

Other information will depend on the company or website or app that was compromised. Examples may include:

• Password
• Address
• Date of birth
• Drivers licence
• Passport numbers
• Credit card numbers

Note – we only advise what type of information was part of the potential data breach. We do not receive or store any of your personal information that was compromised.

We receive the data breach information from Have I Been Pwned. They currently have over 9 billion records of compromised accounts.

Some breaches might not appear because Have I Been Pwned, our service provider, hasn't been granted access to the details about a particular breach.

If a company where you have an account notifies you of a security incident, read the details closely and follow their recommended actions to protect your account.

You should immediately change the password of the online account or app that was compromised.

Consider using a second factor to authenticate your account. Many websites offer this security feature where another piece of information besides your username and password is required to verify you. So even if someone has your password, they can’t get into your account.

You should immediately check your illion credit report for suspicious activity.

Check that no new credit card accounts or loans have been opened in your name or a new enquiry has not been made in your name, that you are not aware of.

Don’t worry, there is no cost for this and checking your credit report will not affect your credit score.

If you find a suspicious record, you can dispute the record via the “Request correction” feature in the illion Credit Report.

Get in touch with your bank or lender and inform them if any financial information was compromised.

If your drivers licence, passport, medicare or other identity documentation were compromised, you should get in touch with the relevant authorities and have your records changed.

You can find more information to support you on the

• Moneysmart website – https://moneysmart.gov.au/banking/banking-and-credit-scams
• Scamwatch - https://www.scamwatch.gov.au
• IDCare - https://www.idcare.org

Yes, you may opt-out of the Email Address monitoring service at any time by disabling the service on the Settings page.

If you disable the service, you can always enable the service again via the Settings page.

Note – if you disable the service, we will not be monitoring your email address for potential data breaches nor sending you alerts of future compromises.

A data breach happens when personal or private information gets exposed, stolen by cyber criminals or copied without permission. Data breaches are usually as a result of cyber attacks to websites, apps or any database where people's personal information resides. A data breach can also happen by accident like if someone's login credentials accidentally get posted publicly.

Verified
A verified breach has generally been publicly acknowledged by hackers, who generally have a track record of breaching data rather than fabricating doing so or pretending to. This means it’s unlikely to be a hoax, especially if you can find the actual information leaked online (for example, email addresses and passwords).

Unverified
With an unverified breach, there is still some doubt as to whether the accounts involved have been compromised, but they’re added as a precaution so users can change their passwords just in case.

Fabricated
Some breaches may be flagged as "fabricated", meaning they are highly unlikely to contain legitimate data sourced from the alleged site. However, fabricated breaches are included because they may still contain actual email addresses unbeknownst to the account holder, and so the data may be sold or traded.

Sensitive
A sensitive breach means data associated with adult websites or content has been leaked or compromised.

When you apply for credit (such as with a bank, telco, insurance company or utility company), they’ll obtain your permission to access your credit history (this is usually in their terms and conditions).

You can read more about who can access your credit report and under what conditions here.

Your credit reporting information is secured via advanced security systems. It’s encrypted at rest and in transport.

By creating an account with illion Credit Protect, you are allowing us to verify who you are and then provide you with a means of viewing your credit information securely. This will allow you to monitor changes over time. You can read our terms of use here.

When you register for illion Credit Protect, we will attempt to verify your identity through electronic routes, once you provide identification details like Driver Licence Number, Medicare Card number or passport number. We will securely verify your identity before granting access to be able to view your credit report information on Credit Protect

If you find something on your credit report that you think is incorrect, you can raise a correction request via the ‘Help’ section available under your profile details on the top right-hand corner of the screen.

If you have a complaint relating to illion’s handling of your personal information or service provided by illion please refer to our Complaints Handling Procedure page here, this page includes the on-line form to raise your complaint.