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Identity theft: Types and Prevention

Today, identity theft is one of the most bases of fraud cases in our world. Identity theft is a way to makes the thief steal personal information to get benefits and advantages from others without having any legal rights or permissions. There has been verified few types of identity theft such as social security number theft, which the thief can get access to accounts for putting bills under someone’s name. Also, there is criminal identity theft, that mean when the thief steals the others identity to commit any type of crimes. Some other form of identity theft is medical or insurance identity theft, when a person steals other medical information in order to get medical treatment. The consequences of any type of identity theft are very harsh for individuals. Sometimes they may have legal problems because a thief might have used their personal information to commit some crimes. According to available statistics, every year more than 15 million people in the US have their identity used for fraud (Identitytheft). It would therefore, mean that every year approximately 7% of the US adult population encounter cases of identity theft. Identity theft is considered a big issue because it leads to financial and legal problems, wrongful treatment at the hospital, which can be prevented by applying Red Flag Rules; protect the home network and personal information.

Criminal Identity theft:

Imagine the following scenario. It is Sunday evening and you are driving down to the mall to buy a drink then you see a flash of lights behind you; it is the police officer asking you to pull over. After running your name on the database, the police asks you to step out of the car and he goes ahead to arrest you. The police officer informs you that you are under arrest because you have been on the list of wanted criminals for multiple charges of crime. Since you have never committed any crime, it means that you are a victim of criminal identity theft.

When an individual deliberately use someone else identity to commit acts of crime, it is described as criminal identity theft. Mostly, the perpetrators of such crimes are very smart because they orchestrate their activities in a very organized manner. Criminal identity theft is the cause of manner problems in the society. It is because some of the data records will show that you committed certain crimes when in reality you did not. In addition, it is also hard for the victim of identity theft to prove that indeed they did not commit the alleged crimes (Harrell). For that reason, victims may lose jobs or be turned away from jobs interview and so on. When cleared of such charges, it would be important to visit various data collectors so that the victim records are erased for good. People really have to be very careful while taking their personal information into the public places (McNally).

Social Security Identity Theft:

Social security is yet another type of identity theft. Thousands of cases of fraud are reported to the police department in the US. Most of such cases are linked to stolen Social Security Number. It is very easy for another person to commit crime such as financial fraud if they are in a possession of SSN that belongs to another person. A recent example of this type of fraud was a Beaufort Woman, Sandra Smyth was charged for taking monthly social security checks of $1,500 and pension checks of $2,100 between Jan. 28 and Aug. 31 in 2012 from Robert Stone. Smyth was acting as Stone’s guardian when she did the theft (Turner). Such of this crimes happen when a thief steals people’s social security card. This document has valuable information about individuals, which allow for criminals to commit the illegal financial fraud in the name of the victims. This is very dangerous, because very often people are not aware that some of the bills have been open in their names. Therefore, one day they are may receive letter non-payment or many late fees, which already accumulated to a big amount. This is very disturbing to the victim because it is hard to prove because it wasn’t them who opened up the bill. It is important for individuals to monitor all their financial records on a regular basis, which can easily reveal if SSN has been compromised.

Medical (Insurance) Identity Theft:

For example, when someone went to a hospital for treatment. The medical attendant assessed his/her situations. The doctor pulled out some medical record from the hospital. In the records, it was indicated that he/she was allergic to a certain drug, which the doctor thought it would offer the best treatment plan for him/her. Based on the medical records, the doctor gave him/her a different drug, which turned out to have an allergic reaction. Sadly, his/her medical records had been tampered because someone else had used details to seek treatment.

Medical and insurance identity theft it happens when a criminal uses people medical or insurance information to get medical care or have the insurance company pay for their medical outlays. It has been stated in the article for BBC News by Adam Levine that the identity theft of medical information went up of over 125% since 2010 till the 2015 (Levine). The numbers show that there is more and more people report that their medical information had been stolen and it is a widely growing crime. There are many individuals who can not afford medication or some medical procedures. Therefore, they use other’s medical insurance to pay for it or just to get into the medical institution to get help. As sad as it sounds it is still a crime and people should protect their medical information just as much as they have to protect their personal information (Levine).

Prevention of Identity Theft:

To every problem there is a solution so, it is important for all stakeholders to be committed in protecting of identity theft first. It has been reported that, between 2009 and 2012, cases of identity theft were recorded as 12.6 million (identitytheft). Therefore, it means that people and the government have to be vigilant to ensure that these figure reduce significantly.

For individuals, it is important to protect your computer, emails, and all digital platforms. The internet provides loopholes, which criminals use to acquire SSN, and other crucial documents (Loviglio). Protecting our computers with password and avoid spam emails may help. In addition, individuals have to be careful when shopping online because of increased cases of fraud (Loviglio). To protect the home network people should use special firewalls that protect the computer from being hacked. It has been said that many of the identity theft happen through the internet. Therefore, people should also help to protect their personal information. This means that they should pay more attention to where they keep their personal document hidden. The legal documents like passport should be kept locked at home and never carried around unless it was necessary. The ID should always be in the purse or wallet which is within the eye contact at all times. Those little steps can prevent the documents from being stolen and may save millions of dollars for the victims of identity theft.

The government is committed to reducing all acts of crime including identity theft. The government prosecutes all perpetrators of identity theft so they applied the Red Flag Rules. The Red Flag Rules were applied in 2007 and stated that all the important institutions have to apply the RFR system in order to assure people the security and safety of their personal information. This prevention program is used by important institutions like banks and departments that hold people’s important data. The Red Flag System includes alerts and warning for people who might have had their name used in the suspicious place or the suspicious name or address used in accordance with the other personal information of that individual.

Conclusion:

In the modern society, people assume the identity of others for financial gains. It is sorrowful that a person whose identity has been stolen might suffer serious consequences. Today, the elements that constitute identity theft may include using someone else’s information, name, identification number, bank details, credit card, and social security number among other without the permission of the owner. People should take cautious steps to be a step ahead of these criminals by protecting their personal information. By this way, they help to protect themselves and don’t only say the government is the responsible for this protection because the individuals play a large role of protection if they only pay more attention to where they keep their personal document hidden.