Identity Theft Articles

Identity Theft is an all inclusive term that defines all types of crimes in which another person’s personal information is illegally used typically for economic gain. In actual, identity theft is not considered as correct term, because it is not possible to steal any ones identity. One can only use another person’s identity. If your identity is illegally used by a criminal, you can end up in a lot of trouble because you will be held responsible for the criminal’s actions. Not only this, you will also end up facing huge financial losses. With the advent of plastic money, this kind of theft has gained tremendous popularity and become a threat for just about everyone. It is now legally considered as a crime in most of the countries.

The major reason behind stealing another person’s identity is to facilitate crimes such as illegal immigration, terrorism and espionage (to collect secret information to provide to third party and get paid for this). It can also be used to blackmail someone. Anyone can attack the payment systems of others by acquiring the personal identity of any specific person. Some persons pretend to be others for non-financial reasons, because they want to get fame and attention of others for the victim’s achievements. This is called identity theft in media.

Financial Identity theft is bank fraud. It occurs when criminal gets a loan from a bank acting to be someone else. The criminal proves himself to be another person by showing an accurate name, address, date of birth or other relevant information that is required by the banks for identification. Even if the lender verifies this information through national consumer reporting agency all information given by criminal is identical and not a single issue arises at this stage. It can only be verified by checking Original ID card issued by Government. Such crimes do not leave any evidence. One can only discover the criminal if the funds for loan were mailed to them.

Identity cloning is the situation when a person uses another persons’ identity to keep himself hidden from the authorities in order to avoid arrest for the crimes. Or it may be done by a person who is illegally working in a foreign country, or by a person who wants to hide himself from creditors and other individuals for certain reasons. Concealment or identity cloning can continue for long duration of time without being detected. Criminals may also obtain fraudulent documents or ID as well. This will reinforce his claim of the cloned ID.

Criminal identity theft is defined as the identity theft when criminal uses the identity of another person when he is arrested by police for a crime. Criminals show their fake ID and fake documents to police and as the criminal has got this Id illegally and it is not his true Id charges are recorded under the victim’s name and real criminal is released. When the victim of criminal identity theft fails to appear for his court hearing warrant would be issued under his name. It is difficult for the criminal identity theft victim to clear the criminal record against him.

Identity theft has become a major crime in USA. Strict laws have been constituted to counter it. Different organizations are also providing protection against it. Identity is very important for every person and every organization and its protection is also very necessary to avoid misuse of the identity.

Read more