Identity theft can happen to anyone, it is when someone gets a hold of some of your personal or financial information and works their way to steal your identity with the information obtained by performing acts under your name. Identity theft could be committed in many different ways therefore it continues to be an ongoing cybercrime. Criminals perform identity theft in order to receive things like financial gains, insurance, a new identity and so forth.
The history of identity theft does not start with the internet. Identity theft started off being a physical crime. Criminals who stole identities murdered their victims and then took the name of their victim, and other information just for the sake of being a new person. It had nothing to do about financials. Identities began to become stolen and created for the sake of multiple ballots which enabled one party to outweigh the other on Election Day.
When states were granted their rights to set their own legal drinking ages in the early thirties it causes young adults to travel a lot to states where they were legal to drink if they were not legal in their own state. The young adults then figured out that they did not need to travel or drink and drive to get their alcohol, they discovered that they just needed a fake ID. Therefore, more identity theft came in place. By 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required that states prohibit people under the age of 21 from purchasing or possessing alcoholic beverages. Because of the act, more fake ID’s were created and more identities were stolen. In the late 1980's the purpose of obtaining fake ID's took a shift. Immigrants needed the ID's to get employed because of the Immigration Control and Reform Act.
The financial theft of identities started off through the phone. The thief would call people and inform them they won a prize and ask for personal and financial information in order for them to receive their prize. People were not aware of the crime and gave out their information most times, leading them to be robbed of their money. Eventually people caught on to the phone scam and no longer fell for it so the thieves had to think of something else. The thieves began to search through trash in hopes of finding any personal or financial information from people. They would search for discarded credit cards, bills, and so on. Because of all the identity theft the Truth in Lending Act of 1968 was passed. The act protected you against inaccurate and unfair credit billing and credit card practices.
The most recent way thieves could steal and retrieve information is through the internet. The internet opened up many doors from these criminals to achieve their goals of stealing someone’s identity. There are many ways a thief could obtain personal and financial information from innocent people through the internet. Personal information shared over unsecured networks or Wi–Fi that is not password protected is one of the ways thieves could retrieve information. Like the free prize phone call, they are now able to do it through the internet instead of the phone and still catch people who will fall for their trick through emails and other forms of communication.
According to the US Department of Justice most recent study, 17.6 million people in the US experience some form of identity theft each year and lost about 15.4 billion in the year of 2014. In the past six years identity thieves have stolen over $107 billion (Strategy, 2017) Each year the amount goes up and it is quite scary.
One major motivating factor for identity theft is the idea of quick and easy money. Identity theft became easier then actually working and doing labor in order to gain money. According to the Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, most times a criminal’s motive for the identity theft is because it is a requirement of further fraud, or to sell the stolen information. There are many different reasons as to way the thief may want your identity. They could want it to buy things that they could not buy in their name like a car or a house. They could want it to obtain employment for themselves, or to receive medical services using your insurance coverage. They could want your identity to commit crimes so you get charged instead of them or just simply for the financial part of it, to obtain all your cash.
An estimated 17.6 million persons, or 7% of all U.S. residents age 16 or older, were victims of one or more incidents of identity the in 2014 (Department of Justice, 2014.) Identity theft can happen to anyone, at any time so there is no one characteristic about a victim that makes them the victim. There are ways to try and prevent yourself from becoming a victim but perpetrators can still find their ways to retrieve your information because protecting your identity from thieves gets harder by the day. But, there are ways that victims of identity theft have put their selves at a higher risk. Victims make their selves more vulnerable of identity theft by using public Wi-Fi networks and entering their personal information on sites while using that unsecured network. Victims also sometimes post a little too much on their social medias, like their birthdates, maiden name & so forth, making it easier for a thieve to get information on them. Victims also make their selves more vulnerable by carrying all their personal and financial information with them and then ending up losing their bag or wallet. Some people still fall for the free prize trick and enter in their information through email, or a fake website used to buy items. There are a million other ways that people make their selves more vulnerable to becoming a victim of identity theft and that is why it gets harder every day to try and protect yourself.
Because of the rise of identity theft, Congress passed a law in 1998 making it a federal crime. Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, making it a federal crime for a person who "knowingly 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.” (Identity Theft, 2017) The law was followed by the Theft Penalty Enhancement Act in 2004 which reinforced the penalties for identity theft, require courts to impose an additional 2 years for general offenses, and 5 years for terrorism related offenses. From then on, more and more laws were passed to help eliminate the act of identity theft but the crimes are becoming difficult to prevent, and they are occurring with increasing frequency.
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world, it is real and will follow us wherever we go. Identity theft robs its victims of their time, money and peace of mind. It becomes harder to prevent every day and anyone could become a victim no matter how careful they are, but the preventative steps should still be taken. I try my hardest to make sure I take all steps, because I cannot imagine the time and effort it will take to get everything back, if you even do. I hope in the future there are better, and stronger regulations to help prevent identity theft from happening and we can rest assured.