What Is Identity Theft?
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What Is Identity Theft?
Identity theft is a crime in which a person uses another person’s personally identifying information without that person’s permission in order to commit a crime. Motivations for committing identity theft are many; they can include buying things for free, destroying another person’s life out of vengeance, avoiding taxes, and other reasons. ID thieves can be friends and family members, fellow churchgoers, rogue individuals, or whole criminal syndicates.
Things To Know
- Texting and social media sites are fertile grounds for identity theft.
- Both the federal government and state governments have laws against ID theft.
How prevalent is it?
The number of victims hit by identity theft can’t be definitively established because not every victim reports it, and not every victim is even aware of it. One figure provided by Javelin Strategy and Research put it at 43 million in 2022.
The average out-of-pocket loss in dollars has risen over the years. The total annual reported fraud, according to Javelin, was about $43 billion in 2022: this includes traditional identity fraud and various identity fraud scams. This figure is large enough to make identity theft a factor to consider in safeguarding your finances.
Trends
As awareness and prevention efforts have grown, ID thieves have become more resourceful. One tactic they use more than they used to is opening up new accounts in other people’s names and using them without the victims’ knowledge, rather than using established ones. Another is stealing from debit cards, because debit cards have fewer protections on them than credit cards do. New forms of technology are also ripe for ID theft. These include texting and social media sites. Another new method involves combining information from several people into a new, non-real person.
Laws against ID theft
The federal government passed the Identify Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act in 1998 to address ID theft. In the wording of the Act, it is a crime when someone:
[K]nowingly transfers or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law.
Federal agencies such as the FBI, the Secret Service, and the US Postal Inspection Service investigate ID crimes. The Department of Justice handles prosecutions. ID theft is not always investigated at the federal level, however; it will do so only if there is a widespread theft involving many people or if the dollar amount of the theft is very high.
The Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act, passed in 2004, establishes penalties for aggravated ID theft.
On the state level
Every state has a law covering identity theft; some are more severe than others. Many states have specific provisions for restitution and forfeiture. A number of them also have identity theft passport programs to protect victims from ongoing ID theft.
State statutes can be found here.