Volume 6
Identity Theft: Even One Victim Affects
Us All
By Eva Casey Velasquez - Identity Theft Resource Center
President/CEO
Eva Casey Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource Center President/CEO
It’s strange to think that identity theft used to be
somewhat more manageable, especially given the
horror stories of this crime’s early victims and their
attempts at recovering their lives. When identity
theft first became a widespread crime that targeted
individuals, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors didn’t even know where to begin investigating or making an arrest. Banks and credit card
companies had no mechanism for recognizing the
fraud and helping the victim overcome the sudden debt. It was a crime that everyone had to learn
about together in order to find a resolution, but at
the same time, it was such a small-scale type of
crime that it was almost unheard of.
Unfortunately, the digit al age has meant the days
of check washing or dumpster diving for individual
identities are largely behind us. With a few keystrokes, a hacker can steal millions of identities and
sell them on the dark web for dollars apiece. It’s
easier than ever to steal identities and turn a profit,
even as the law has caught up in some measure
with hunting perpetrators and protecting victims.
How big is the issue? Identity theft has grown into
such a widespread problem that President Barack
July-Aug 2016 Edition
Obama recently declared it a threat to our national
security. With record numbers of data breaches
and large-scale attacks like the Office of Personnel Management breach that stole the identities of
more than 22 million people—including all federal
employees who had high-level security clearances—it’s not hard to connect the dots and see how
serious a threat this really is.
According to the White House, “But just as the continually evolving digital age presents boundless opportunities for our economy, our businesses, and
our people, it also presents a new generation of
threats that we must adapt to meet. Criminals, terrorists, and countries who wish to do us harm have
all realized that attacking us online is often easier
than attacking us in person. As more and more
sensitive data is stored online, the consequences
of those attacks grow more significant each year.
Identity theft is now the fastest growing crime in
America.”
Despite the recognition of the threat, there’s no limit
in sight for the value of our information. Even while
understanding that hackers and identity thieves
stand to make unheard of profits off our data, we
can’t help but leave a trail of “digital exhaust” everywhere we go, to use a phrase coined by Rick
Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, authors of The Human
Face of Big Data. Our homes, our smartcars, our
Internet of Things-connected appliances, our mobile devices, and even our bodies produce a wealth
of information that can be sold or used against us,
and therefore becomes a sought-after target.
Everything we do—from keeping tabs on our locations through our smartphones to gathering and
storing our physical biometric indicators—produces
a set of data markers that have value to someone.
Our identifying information is put out there every
single day for anyone with the right skills to access.
As Smolan and Erwitt have uncovered, there’s an
entire industry—both on the right side of the law
and the wrong side—based on the buying and selling of our identifiers. Businesses will pay for infor45