Identity theft

Identity theft (or identity fraud) is the deliberate assumption of another person's identity, usually to gain access to their finances or frame them for a crime. Less commonly, it is to enable illegal immigration, terrorism, espionage, or changing identity permanently. It may also be a means of blackmail, especially if medical privacy or political privacy has been breached, and if revealing the activities undertaken by the thief under the name of the victim would have serious consequences like loss of job or marriage. Assuming a false identity with the knowledge and approval of the person being impersonated, such as for cheating on an exam, is not considered to be identity theft.

Related Topics:
Identity fraud - Identity - Frame - Crime - Illegal immigration - Terrorism - Espionage - Blackmail - Medical privacy - Political privacy - Thief - Victim - Cheating - Exam

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Techniques for obtaining identification information range from the crude, such as stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish (dumpster diving in the USA), stealing personal information in computer databases, to infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information.

Related Topics:
Dumpster diving - USA - Infiltration

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Identity theft is usually the result of serious breaches of privacy. Except for the simplest credit-related cases, it is usually not possible without breakdowns in

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• customer privacy, in which case the consequences may be limited to fraud on one corporation, typically the one that leaked the data in the first place, e.g. account numbers.
• consumer privacy, more serious, where credit card numbers or other generally-useful identity data are stolen and used much more widely.
• client confidentiality and political privacy, making it easy to effectively impersonate someone, by using confidential information that an ordinary impersonator would not have access to.
 
Identity theft: Consequences of identity theft ►