Almost seven to 10 million Americans have already been affected by identity theft. This is a crime wherein a person deliberately uses other person’s identity for personal gains.
Thieves are enabled to access the benefits of their victims receiving trough their Social Security number, medical insurance, driver’s license. It causes trauma for the victim because of identity loss, financial loss and constant fear of being robbed again.
Identity thieves’ top motivations are personal and economic gain. They can steal identity through character identity theft where they impersonate other person and commit a crime using their victim’s name.
Your Social Security Number, medical insurance and credit card can also be used by identity thieves. They can gain the benefits you are supposed to be receiving. You can also loss your job, life long benefits and insurance because of fraudulent use of these important accounts.
In our everyday lives, there are infinite chances that our identity could be stolen. Skimming is a process where other person gets the encrypted information of your credit card. Thief would use device to do it that you can not be aware of. The thief can now duplicate your credit card and uses it.
Phising can be done by thieves by posing as personnel of a credit card company asking you to give personal information. They require you to pay processing fee and they would disappear as soon as you pay.
You can also be victimized through shoulder surfing. Thieves can obtain your account number and PIN while using ATM. They used cell phone camera.
Last July, 2004, President Bush signed a legislation to fight the fast growing number of identity theft crimes. The legislation is called the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act that provides more penalties to identity thieves.
In the act, two years to three years in prison are added to the existing punishment for “knowingly transferring, possessing, or using, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person”. Another five years to 25 years maximum in prison if the identity thief stole identity for terrorist acts, nationally and internationally.
There is also an increase in two years for anyone who commits aggravated identity theft, in order to commit other Federal felonies. These punishments are strictly followed every state to punish every identity thief.
The Department of Justice handled all credit card and other appropriation- related cases. The department would do necessary investigation and prosecution of identity thieves. The new act also requires the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review and amend its guidelines and policy statements. This is to ensure that the guidelines would appropriately punish identity theft offenses.
The Department of Justice cooperates with other government agencies to persecute identity theft. The identity thieves can be punished as high as 30 years of imprisonment or huge amount of fines.
Consumers could now be more secure about identity theft protection because a law against identity theft becomes tougher. There are now many laws to different kinds of identity theft, and these have been enacted properly.
We cannot be 100 percent safe at this age of advanced technology of our personal and financial information. These laws help us to be proactive in protecting our identity.
