Anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage knows that lenders are already looking much more closely at your financial affairs. But soon, they’ll be able to easily delve into the deepest recesses of your financial life, accessing information that never before appeared on your credit report.

Any company, organization, or individual with a “legitimate business need” can request to see your credit history, and these requests are known as credit inquiries. They are divided into two categories called hard and soft inquiries — hard inquiries will affect your credit history and credit score while soft inquiries will not.

If you find errors or inaccuracies in your credit history file, you will have to submit a dispute letter or request to each of the credit bureaus on which the mistake appears. In some cases you may be able to dispute the error with online forms, but in some cases you’ll have to submit a letter with your corroborating documents.

A credit freeze occurs when you notify a credit bureau not to release your credit history without your consent. This is an effective way to combat identity theft since a potential identity thief will not be able to see your credit history even if he has your personal identifying information.

Credit monitoring services will watch over your credit file with continuous around the clock tracking and notify you whenever there is a change to the credit file. These services will alert you within 24 hours of a change, usually through email, phone, or text message as you see fit.