2nd draft for Identity Theft--Research Paper

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Identity Theft

Niesha Turner

DeVry University

Introduction

Identity theft is considered to have occurred when oneanother person assumes the identity of another person with purposes of using the identity to get involved in unlawful actions. According to (Risen, 2015), millions of scammers dedicatedly work without break to steal people’s identitiesy which they can use in their illegal activities. They get hold of identification information like names, identification numbers and credit cards without the owner’s permission and this could lead to immense consequences for the victim. Many measures have been put in place by governments and companies of various states to curb up this crime; however, a lot still needs to be done especially by people who regularly use the internet. People need to take up the responsibility of taking care of themselves and avoid their personal details being accessed easily. Kirk, (2014) argues that when an individual understands what exactly identity theft is, they are able to manage the crime and its consequences. So far so good. This introduction is pretty strong, and your thesis is strong and clear. Comment by Jonathan Tosch: “has occurred” would be a lot more elegant and a lot less wordy Comment by Jonathan Tosch: Since you have already established that identities are stolen from people, it’s not necessary here to repeat that. Hence, I made the suggested edit I did.

Is identity theft a new phenomenon?

According to Kirk, (2014), identity theft takes form as impersonation, falsification and misuse of identities. These crimes have been in existence for more than a century now. As soon as people realized that they could benefit from stealing another person’s identity, immense numbersreports of such crimes have been reported all over the world. Such crimes were reported in as early as the Egyptian civilizations. The phenomenon has vastly improved with the growing IT infrastructure around the world. It is now much easier for scammers who have high levels of IT skills to access information which could land them access to bank information of their victims and other avenues of gain. Comment by Jonathan Tosch: I cut “reports” because it was redundant, since you used the verb “reported” later in the sentence. Comment by Jonathan Tosch: Is “improved” the word you want? That makes it sound like identity theft is a good thing. Maybe “increased”?

The role of internet in identity theft

The internet has provided anonymity; therefore, there is lack of physical jurisdiction. With the internet, fraudsters can easily facilitate speedy funds transfers between banks from one country to another. As soon as the transaction crosses from one country to another, the issue becomes even more complicated as two different laws of the countries involved are considered. Identity theft has been considered as the most common type of online minor criminal activity. Activities like internet banking, internet shopping, instant access to personal funds has continued to attract scammers. According to Risen, (2015) most banking institutions which are supposed to protect its clients perceive this crime as a cost of doing business and they prefer paying for such losses than introducing secure banking systems. I think you could and should develop this paragraph a lot more. I’m sure there is more to write about here.

How scammers access people’s information

Currently, people are careless and do not put in mind the consequences of carelessly giving away their identities and private information especially when they are doing online shopping and when engaging in social media. On the other hand, commercial institutions have gathered immense information on most of its clients which they use to predict customer’s needs which they use to improve their sales. A lot of information about an individual can be accessed on platforms like face book and they can be easily published. This information can also be used to blackmail these people if not being involved in unlawful activities (Gradduck & Addrian, 2007).

What is to be done?

Apart from the law doing its part, individuals need to take the upper hand in protecting themselves from the scammers. People need to take a civil action and try to improve and strengthen the systems they use. It all starts by people changing their careless habits which

expose them to be victims of this crime and reduce their complacency. Law enforcement is limited as cybercrime continues to threaten not only individuals, but companies and businesses, causing them huge losses. Even though such crimes are reported to the law systems, very little evidence is gathered making prosecution difficult. Rebovich (2009) states that it is going to take time for ggovernments to legally and separately identify this crime so as to be able to address it amicably. Therefore the issue of security largely lies in the hands of individual internet users.

How to currently protect one self

The measures put in place when identity theft occurs cannot eradicate or mitigate the crime, meaning that people will continue to suffer its consequences if they do not take good care of their personal information. To take good care of one self, a person needs to use cash in most instances and avoid the use of credit cards where possible, give personal details to people who are deserving and not to everyone, especially when using social media and finally, shred any document before throwing it away to avoid people accessing important information written on it. However, according to Gradduck & Addrian, (2007) this is an impossible and unrealistic venture for commercial companies. On their part they should be able to put in place better management response systems which are slicker in nature. They should also give relevant education to their clients on how to protect themselves. Most banks need effective sophisticated systems which can be able to detect unusual activities on their clients’ accounts. For instance, according to (Kirk, 2014), the Chip and Pin software was introduced in banks across Europe and immense positive results have been recorded. Strong passwords can also be created to mitigate the crime. Gradduck & Addrian, (2007) maintain that identy theft is very hard to detect and it calls for people to be very vigilant about sharing their personal information and observe all ways which they can keep themselves safe.

References

Gradduck, L., & Addrian, M. (2007). Identifying the indentity thief:Is it time for a (smart)Australia card? Inernational Journal of law and information technology , 125-158.

Kirk, d. (2014). Identifying identity theft. The Journal of criminal Law , 448-450.

Rebovich, D. (2009). Examining identity theft:empirical explorations of offense and the offender. Victims and Offenders , 357-364.

Risen, T. (2015, March 2). U.S. News. Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/03/02/identity-theft-remains-top-consumer-complaint-ftc-says.