What Is Identity Theft? How Can Identities Be Stolen? What Can Be Done To Reduce The Impact Of Identity Theft On Victims?
Identity theft is the wrong use of somebody’s personal information to commit a crime. It is a scam that is always in the media because of its high occurrence. This fraud normally leads to one getting a credit, merchandise or a service that is no entitled to. Victims cannot easily realize that their identity is stolen till when they are denied credit or employment, when a debtor comes to seek for payments that an individual never took. The advancement of information technology and computer literacy has helped the fraudulent to access personal information to produce identity theft easily. Lack of clear policy on persecution of fraudulent and inconsistencies in the investigation have contributed to the increase of identity theft crimes (Schmalleger 596).
Identity theft occurs when a wrong person obtains somebody’s personal information. Identity thieves can obtain personal information in several ways. To begin with; they can obtain individual information from unprotected sites on the internet. It can also be obtained from individual information at work, business or from one’s home. The thieves can steal wallets which may be containing bank and credit statements, pre-approved credits, new checks and tax details. Rummaging trashes and dumpsites can enable them obtain personal data. The thieves can also buy one’s personal information from inside sources. Finally, they can pose into one’s phone or e-mail and obtain personal data.
This misuse of personal data can be categorized into two ways namely the existing account fraud and new account fraud. The existing new account fraud occurs when the thieves obtain account information that involves banking, credit and brokerages by stealing a credit card. It is not costly, but it is the most preferred by thieves. Despite that the credit card may not provide a lot of information, it can still lead to thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges (Schmalleger 596).
The second category is the new account fraud. In this category, thieves use personal information like social security numbers, dates of birth and home contacts to open new accounts using the victim names, make charges and finally disappear. Thieves can use this personal data to obtain benefits that the criminal is not entitled to have. Though it rarely occurs, it causes greater hardships on the victims (Schmalleger 596).
Identity theft is a pervasive crime that needs joining hands among the law enforcers, federal and state government and citizens to combat the crime. To prevent the impact of these incidences, the following can be applied: there should be a reduction in the unnecessary use of social security number to the general public and use of alternative strategies for identity management. Partnership of both private and public sectors in protection own data, provision of a notice to the consumer when a violation occurs will help a lot. Federal agencies should sensitize the general public on deterring, detecting and defending themselves against identity crimes. Victims should be provided with the knowledge, tools and assistance required to reduce the damage and in making their recovery. A special training for victim recovery should be given to both responders and others. This will offer direct assistance to identity theft victims by training law enforcers and provision of materials that can be used as a guide for identity victims. The government should create and distribute an ID theft victim statement. Finally, establishing a system that can allow victims to obtain identification document for authentication purposes will reduce the identity theft impacts (Schmalleger 600).
In conclusion, it is very important for individuals to safeguard their personal data. This will make it hard for the thieves to get access to it. To those who have been the victims, they can still use the legal procedures to recover their lost identity.
Works Cited:
Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction. Upper Saddle River, N.J [u.a.: Prentice Hall, 1999. Print.
