Identity theft is a type of fraud which involves stealing money or gaining other
benefits by pretending to be someone else. Having your identity taken can
be financially and emotionally devastating.
Identity theft can occur in many ways from somebody using your credit card
details illegally to make purchases to having your entire identity assumed by
another person to open bank accounts, take out loans and conducting
illegal business under your name.
Identity theft works in a range of ways from crude methods to well organised
scams.
Many of us have a wealth of personal information readily available cards in
our wallet, mail, public records, information saved in our computers and
information posted on social networking sites.
Identity theft can happen easily and
quickly. By leaving your personal
information readily available, scammers will
have easy access to this information. For
example, scammers will pay people to
rummage through rubbish tips and steal
letters to collect personal information.
3 million of those identities are that of
deceased people.
Child identity theft is also a common type
of identity thief. Children have no public information, public records or any
other information associated with their social security number, making the
identity of a child very valuable. Children are being targeted 35 times more
often than adults.
There lots of different forms of identity theft, for example:
Identity cloning and concealment
In this situation, the identity thief impersonates someone else in order to
conceal their own true identity. Examples might be illegal immigrants, people
hiding from creditors or other individuals, or those who simply want to
become "anonymous" for personal reasons. Another example are posers, a
label given to people who use somebody else’s photos and information
through social networking sites. Mostly, posers create believable stories
involving friends of the real person they are imitating. Unlike identity theft used
concealment may continue indefinitely without being detected, particularly
if the identity thief is able to obtain false credentials in order to pass various
authentication tests in everyday life.
Criminal identity
When a criminal fraudulently identifies himself to police as another individual
at the point of arrest, it is sometimes referred to as "Criminal Identity Theft." In
some cases criminals have previously obtained state-issued identity
documents using credentials stolen from others, or have simply presented
fake ID. Provided the subterfuge works, charges may be placed under the
victim's name, letting the criminal off the hook. Victims might only learn of
such incidents by chance, for example by receiving court summons,
discovering their drivers licenses are suspended when stopped for minor
traffic violations, or through background checks performed for employment
purposes
Medical identity theft
Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses a person's name and
sometimes other parts of their identity—such as insurance information—
without the person's knowledge or consent to obtain medical services or
goods, or uses the person’s identity information to make false claims for
medical services or goods. Medical identity theft frequently results in
erroneous entries being put into existing medical records, which may in turn
lead to inappropriate and potentially life-threatening decisions by medical
staff.
The best way to
protect your identity
is to be careful what
information about
yourself you put
public on online
shopping sites, social
networking sites etc,
and also to shred
letters notes and mail before chucking them
in the bin.