Identity Theft: It's Out of Your Hands

According to Gartner, 15 million identities per year are stolen, a new victim once every 2 seconds. Given 15 million a year, in ten years every U.S. citizen who uses the Net will have had his or her identity stolen. Well, either that or one unfortunate person will have to suffer through filing 150 million claims for himself.

The Identity Theft Resource Center, says the incidence of identity theft increased by 50 percent in 2008 from 2007, and it continues to be one of the fastest-growing crimes in the United States. There is a thriving online international black market in stolen identities that local, state, federal, and international law enforcement seem powerless to stop. In fact, it has gotten so easy to steal and sell identities that prices have come down dramatically over the past two years. Why does it seem like it is getting easier for the bad guys and harder for the good guys like you and me? Because your identity is spread far and wide around the Internet, and its protection is out of your hands.

Yet, protecting yourself is only part of the problem. How many entities on the Web and in the real world have you entrusted with some aspect of your identity? How many online retailers have your credit card info? Corporate data breaches are on the rise. The Identity Theft Resource Center's 2008 breach report reached 656 reported breaches at the end of 2008, reflecting an increase of 47 percent over last year's total of 446. In addition, ITRC estimates that only 2.4 percent of all the companies breached had encryption or other strong protection methods in use, while only 8.5 percent of reported breaches involved surmounting password protection. If a company can't even password-protect access to our identities, does it really deserve our business?