Identity Theft Issue - Essay Example

Identity theft is one of the major crimes faced by society in the world.
As online social media has expanded, likewise, identity theft crimes have increased manifold. It has become necessary for people to be adequately educated about the risks involved and the necessary preventive measures.

Identity theft is a crime in which an imposter tries to pretend to be someone else using some key identification data of the victim. This may include social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc. When communicating online it becomes even easier to appear to be someone else since the communication is not face to face but online and the distance between the two persons or parties gives an advantage to the criminal. The crime may be committed to seeking monetary or social or any other form of benefit. Recovery from identity theft may be easier in certain cases of small thefts involving individuals but it may become very grave if reputed organizations are victimized and they end up spending large sums in repairing the damage caused to their goodwill (World Privacy Forum, 2012).

Crime is very diversified and innovative in the present day. The old-fashioned methods of rummaging through the rubbish bins or picking pockets have been replaced by software, viruses, and programming scripts. Computer viruses have proved to be efficient ways of committing identity theft in which all possible identity material of any person or organization may be extracted and put to use in another part of the world and the victim remains oblivious to such activities. Identity theft may range from simply posing to be someone else to more lethal actions such as financial identity theft, child identity theft, medical identity theft to seek medical care or drugs while pretending to be someone else, or identity cloning in which the criminal assumes the complete identity of a victim in daily life (Compton, 2012).
Identity thieves operating online usually work by tricking you into providing your personal information to them through various methods such as phishing, luring you with job opportunities, money scams, or fake fraud alerts. Phishing involves an email sent to a victim which redirects him to a fake website where you are required to fill up a signup form with your personal information. Similarly, job opportunity forms are sent and personal information is extracted. Fake fraud alert emails are sent which seem to be legitimate mail from the victim's bank. The victim is informed that someone has tried to fraudulently access his account so he must send certain personal information for verification (Federal Trade Commission, 2006)

Today society is very susceptible to falling for such tricks of criminals since the spoofed websites developed by criminals are so similar to the original ones that an average person cannot identify and differentiate between the real and fake. A simple change of address form may be filled up by someone and the utility bills of the victim will end up somewhere else resulting in nonpayment of a charge and a bad credit report. Furthermore, the personal data commonly available on social networking websites may be used by criminals to communicate with a victim's contacts and seek financial benefits while pretending to be him. An ATM or a credit/debit card may be duplicated and money drawn from a victim's account. Thus it is clear that every individual and organization must educate itself and others about the seriousness of the implications this crime can have.
To address the crimes of identity theft, all countries and states have made laws and designated punishments according to the seriousness of the crime committed. An identity theft case that occurred in 2011 is considered to be the largest single id theft scam scooping up millions of dollars over about three months. A group of 111 people has been apprehended of which the main culprits were a couple, Amar Singh and his wife Neha Punjani-Singh. The criminals had made a hefty sum of 13 million dollars through scams. The group would receive identity information from different people from other countries using skimming devices to obtain credit card information. The money was used for various purposes including renting expensive cars, and jets and living in five-star hotels. Amar Singh had to face 250 years in prison for his crimes but was sentenced to only less than 11 years in prison which was unjust to the victims of his crimes given the huge scale of the scam committed. A more severe punishment could have helped set an example for future criminals (FTC, 2011).

It may be concluded here that identity theft is a serious crime, of which everyone must be educated and well aware. While online, any sensitive identity information must not be revealed.