Identity theft is assumption of our identity by someone else, deliberately, to commit crime. It causes serious breaches of privacy. Identity theft could have serious consequences on our lives, including loss of job or breakdown of marriage. However less common, identity theft is also carried out to enable terrorism, espionage, illegal immigration or permanent identity change.
The Consequences of Identity Theft
Identity theft is a precursor to other, more serious crimes. There is an estimation that identity theft has caused credit card companies lose more than $5 billion a year, which they accept as a ‘consequence of doing businesses. We should ensure that credit card companies make credit card information more secure. After all, it is misuse of our identities. Credit card companies have an aversion to publicizing cases of identity theft, thereby giving rise to more frauds.
Let us look at the consequences of breaches of privacy and of identity theft:
Customer Privacy – Commercial organizations take measures to ascertain confidential customer information is neither stolen nor abused. Breach of this privacy could have limited negative consequences on one organization.
Consumer Privacy - Laws and regulations protect us from loss of privacy due to failures or limitations of corporate measures. Breach of this privacy has larger consequences, especially when it involves loss of credit card information and other useful information on identity theft.
Medical Privacy - The Medical Information Privacy and Security Act (MIPSA) contains provisions that require access to medical history to generate an audit trail. Data is compartmentalized so that genetic information is not released easily. Its breach has wider consequences as data can be changed to affect identity theft and impersonate us with ease.
Political Privacy - Breach of political privacy has greater consequences by making it easy to effectively impersonate us using confidential information, not usually available.
Now that we know about the consequences of identity theft, we need to understand how to avoid identity theft. Please read our next article in the series that takes you through different methods that could help avoid identity theft.
Jon Sterling tries to help you overcome Identity Theft problems through informative articles to help you reach your personal financial goals.
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