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Identity theft is a term first appearing in U.S.
literature in the 1990s, leading to the drafting
of the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence
Act.
In
1998,The Federal Trade Commission appeared before
the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and
Government Information of the Committee of the
Judiciary, United States Senate.
The FTC high-lighted the concerns of consumers for
financial crimes exploiting their credit
worthiness to commit loan fraud,
mortgage fraud,
lines-of-credit fraud,
credit card fraud,
commodities and services frauds.
With the rising awareness of consumers to an
international problem, in particular through a
proliferation of web sites and the media, the term
"identity theft" has since morphed to encompass a
much broader range of identification-based crimes.
The more traditional crimes range from dead beat
dads avoiding their financial obligations, to
providing the police with stolen or forged
documents thereby avoiding detection, money
laundering, trafficking in human beings, stock
market manipulation and even to terrorism.
According to the non-profit
Identity Theft Resource
Center, identity
theft is sub-divided into four categories:
Financial Identity Theft (using another's name and
SSN to obtain goods and services), Criminal
Identity Theft (posing as another when apprehended
for a crime), Identity Cloning (using another's
information to assume his or her identity in daily
life) and Business/Commercial Identity Theft
(using another's business name to obtain credit).
The
term "identity theft" is an oxymoron.
It is not possible to steal a human identity.
Human identity is a psychological thing, or the
subject of philosophical conversation.
The
Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act
(2003)[ITADA] amended the U.S. Code, s. 1028 -
"Fraud related to activity in connection with
identification documents, authentication features,
and information". The Code now makes possession of
any "means of identification" to "knowingly
transfer, possess, or use without lawful
authority" a federal crime, alongside unlawful
possession of identification documents.
Some people prefer the term "identity fraud" to
describe when their means of identification has
been exploited for an unlawful purpose. Others
believe the thief does deprive the owner of his
identity by replacing his reputation with the
thief's. Both uses of the term focus on the act of
acquiring the legally attributed personal
identifiers and other personal information
necessary to perpetrate the impersonation.
A
classic example of consumer-dependent financial
crime occurs when Bob obtains a loan from a
financial institution impersonating Peter. Bob
uses Peter's personal identifiers that he has
somehow acquired. These personal identifiers
conform with the data retained on Peter by
national credit-rating services. The identifiers
include surname, given names, date of birth,
Social Security number (U.S.), Social Insurance
Number (Cda), current and former addresses etc.
These data are all part of credit header
information retained by credit-rating services.
The crimes are self-revealing. When Peter defaults
on payments the lenders become aware. With
consumers being credit-dependent, the onus shifts
to them to re-establish their credit-worthiness
with the lending institutions and credit-rating
services.
Less commonly understood outside criminal
intelligence and law enforcement circles is the
impact of identification-based concealment crimes.
As with credit-dependent consumer financial
crimes, criminals acquire legally attributed
personal identifiers and then clone someone to
them for concealment from authorities. Unlike
credit-dependent financial crimes, they are non
self-revealing, continuing for an indeterminate
amount of time without being detected.
The
crimes include
illegal immigration,
terrorism
and
espionage,
to mention a few. It may also be a means of
blackmail
if activities undertaken by the
thief
in the name of the victim would have serious
consequences for the victim. There are cases of
identity cloning to attack payment systems, such
as obtaining medical treatment.
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