The Best Identity Theft Protection for Families

We've found that the overall best identity protection service for families is Norton LifeLock. LifeLock provides the most insurance coverage and protection against child identity theft on its family plan. Other options include IdentityForce, which provides social media monitoring, and IDShield by LegalShield, that comes with court document monitoring.

You never want to be a victim of identity theft, but with so many identity theft protection companies it can be challenging to figure out which ones are best for your family. Let's break down why these three options stand out for families.

The best identity theft protection services for families 2024

• Norton LifeLock: Best for comprehensive coverage
• IdentityForce: Best for families on a budget and single-caregiver families
• IDShield by LegalShield: Best for reputation monitoring

Top 3 identity theft protection services for families compared

Service	Norton LifeLock	IdentityForce	IDShield
Starting price	Starts at $12.49/mo (billed annually) for first year	Starts at $16.66/mo	Starts at $29.95/mo
# of people covered	Up to 2 adults and 5 children	Up to 2 adults and 10 children	Up to 2 adults and 10 children
Types of identity monitoring	Dark web, social media, SSN, and home title	Dark web, social media, SSN, and home title	Dark web, social media, and SSN
Credit monitoring
ID theft insurance	Up to $3 million	Up to $2 million	Up to $3 million
Identity restoration services
Extras	Data removal	Password manager, secure storage, PC protection, VPN (mobile)	Antivirus, VPN, password manager
Details	View Plans	View Plans	View Plans

How we tested the best identity theft protection for families

Nearly every identity theft protection solution will provide a basic set of capabilities:

• Credit monitoring
• Transaction monitoring
• Dark web monitoring
• Identity theft insurance

When looking for differentiators among the various services, the stand-out technologies all offered something that no one else did. With families, ID theft protection capabilities really focus on how kids and teens use the internet, as well as the types of family structures that might struggle to pay for services.

When considering what families need and why they need them, each of the top three offered something unique in one of the following categories:

• How adults and children use the internet: Cybercriminals target everyone, and increasingly they focus on tweens and teens, so identity theft protection needs to cover every location that can be compromised, including social media and online gaming.
• Number of caregivers in a household: Data protection should be affordable for everyone, so it is important to consider the households that are trying to get by on one caregiver's salary.
• Non-financial harm: Identity theft protection often focuses on money rather than how cybercriminals can use a victim’s digital identity to engage in social engineering online, which harms the person’s real-world reputation.

Norton LifeLock: Best for comprehensive coverage

Who it’s best for

At the Standard level, LifeLock is solid and provides more insurance than other service providers. However, its real value comes with its higher-tier identity theft protection plans. At its mid-tier level, the Advantage subscription gives you two protection features that other services don’t: phone takeover monitoring and alerts for Buy Now Pay Later scams. The Ultimate Plus plan comes with additional monitoring and alerts for more types of identity theft, comprehensive credit monitoring services, and more.

For parents, the biggest value here comes from the insurance to their child's identity. Children get up to $25,000 reimbursement for stolen funds on family plans.

What we liked

Norton is a long-established name in the personal digital protection world, thanks to its antivirus software. It’s been around since 1990, and its services have continued to evolve with the times. LifeLock even has apps for iOS and Android.

LifeLock has considered almost every potential risk. Some of LifeLock’s key benefits at the Advantage tier are:

• Financial and criminal alerts for credit cards, bank accounts, Buy Now Pay Later scams, and crimes in your name
• Monthly credit score updates
• Credit lock with TransUnion
• Unique features, like phone takeover and fictitious identity monitoring

Some of LifeLock’s key benefits at the Ultimate Plus tier are:

• Monitoring and alerts for home titles, checking and savings plan applications, 401K and investment accounts, and bank account takeover
• Unlimited access to your Equifax credit report and score
• Annual credit reports from all three bureaus
• Unique features, like file-sharing network searches and monitoring your social media accounts

And for its identity restoration services, every LifeLock tier comes with varying amounts of fund reimbursement for lawyers and identity theft experts, stolen funds, and personal expenses. It also offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you have plenty of time to determine if LifeLock is right for you.

What we didn’t like

Considering LifeLock is one of the pricier options, we expected the customer service to be a bit better. While you can get live chat and phone support, the representatives aren’t always the most knowledgeable. LifeLock also has a competitive price, but it renews at a higher rate after the first year, regardless of which plan you choose.

LifeLock pros and cons

IdentityForce: Best for families on a budget and single-caregiver families

Who it’s best for

IdentityForce offers two plans, which keeps the comparison between them simple. Although IdentityForce’s basic plan is more expensive than some others, it also gives you a lot more bang for your buck. You have to pay for each member separately, meaning that each adult is full price. However, you can add on the child identity theft protection for only an additional $2.75/mo.

ChildWatch offers very basic coverage:

• Ongoing identity monitoring
• Smart Social Security number (SSN) tracker for Social Security monitoring
• Identity restoration specialist
• $1 million in identity theft insurance

What we liked

No matter what your family looks like or its needs, you can use IdentityForce to build out a protection and monitoring plan. While IdentityForce may not have as many bells and whistles as some other services, it does give you all the basics plus a few protection features you didn’t know you needed.

The basic IdentityForce plan includes some monitoring that other basic plans don’t offer, like:

• Daily credit score updates
• Short-term loan monitoring
• Social media account monitoring

If you invest a little extra into the UltraSecure+Credit plan, you get some proactive cybersecurity as well with:

• A virtual private network (VPN)
• Mobile threat management

These offerings can help you put proactive cybersecurity protections in place that can prevent identity theft from happening.

What we didn’t like

As with any budget-friendly option, you’re going to find that getting some services means giving up others, so you have to think about what matters most to you. The following IdentityForce factors gave us pause or led to a lackluster experience.

• Data collection/use: Logs data from your device and imports any third-party data it can find on you for marketing purposes
• Identity theft insurance: Remediation specialists are required before identity theft insurance payout
• Customer service: No live chat, but you can call or fill out an online form, and support was hard to get a hold of or unhelpful
• Mobile apps: Slow, buggy, and crashed pretty often

IdentityForce pros and cons

IDShield by LegalShield: Best for reputation monitoring

Who it’s best for

IDShield offers a few unique reputation management tools that other services lack. For families, reputation monitoring becomes important for several reasons. You want to protect your reputation for both personal and professional reasons. You also want to protect your kids’ reputations for social and academic reasons. Today, your digital profile is part of how companies and other parents determine your trustworthiness.

IDShield has really strong reputation management capabilities, and it also offers some unique proactive security options that other services lack.

What we liked

All IDShield plans come with the same identity protection, SSN protection, and credit protection features. The only difference is the number of major credit bureaus that your plan monitors.

IDShield is the most expensive of the top three identity theft protection tools, but it also provides some of the most unique services:

• Public records monitoring: Monitors 34 different personally identifiable information (PII) elements, including all personal and professional licenses, registrations, property data, Social Security data repositories, phones, aliases, and criminal records.
• Social media monitoring: Monitors content feed reputation risks like vulgar, harmful, threatening, discriminatory, or sexual language as well as drug and alcohol references
• Parental control tools: Sets up schedules for when your kids can browse the internet with content and web filters to limit what they can view.

All the IDShield Family plans also cover up to 15 devices, so there’s extensive coverage for you and your loved ones. Beyond accessing the website, IDShield also has apps for iOS and Android that both have ratings above 4.5 stars.

What we didn’t like

While IDShield has several unique features, all of those come with an expensive price tag attached. Unless you’re specifically concerned about your reputation, specifically social media monitoring, you can get most of the other services from other providers. With the 1 Credit Bureau monitoring option clocking in at $29.95/mo, IDShield’s lowest tier is more expensive than other services’ most costly tiers.

IDShield pros and cons

FAQs

Bottom line: The best ID theft protection for families

The best identity theft protection service for families is LifeLock, as it offers the most coverage for identity theft. When you’re a cybercrime victim, you can feel as though you’ve lost control of everything. With identity theft protection services like LifeLock, IdentityForce, or IDShield, you can monitor your family’s digital presence and have control over your digital identity for peace of mind.

If you’re still trying to figure out which of the services mentioned in this article are right for your family, then you can read this identity theft protection and credit monitoring guide for more information.

3 best ID theft protection services for families 2024

	Starting price for families	Best for	Learn more
Norton LifeLock	Starts at $12.49/mo (billed annually) for first year	Best for comprehensive coverage	View Plans Read Norton LifeLock Review
IdentityForce	Starts at $16.66/mo	Best for families on a budget and single-caregiver families	View Plans Read IdentityForce Review
IDShield	Starts at $29.95/mo	Best for reputation monitoring	Get IDShield Read IDShield Review

How to choose the best identity theft protection service for families

With so many different technologies available, choosing just one requires a lot of thought and comparison. While the three top technologies for families in this guide are a good starting point, you want to make sure that you understand your unique family’s needs.

When you’re evaluating a service, you might want to ask yourself::

• How much do its family plans cost?
• How many adults and how many children are included in each family plan?
• Is there protection against child identity theft?
• What level of protection does it provide for children, and how does it define “child”?
• Does it alert users to data breaches in multiple areas, including social media and gaming?
• Does it monitor credit reports from all three bureaus: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax?
• How often does it provide credit score updates?
• Does it assist with identity recovery for all family members?
• Does it provide identity theft insurance? If so, how much? (Up to $1 million is most common.)
• Does it offer apps for multiple common device types and operating systems?
• Does its privacy policy state it doesn’t sell data?