By: Arthur Hall
Submitted: 2010-06-04 00:07:48 | Word Count: 646
I was driving; three men ambushed me and took all my personal belonging and my brand new car. Everybody cried for the car no among friends and relatives talked of identity documents as important as the car. After three years of the incident I received a dream like visit from the police, reason is that I had robbed a bank where one banker died and scores other injured. The well armed police officers surrounded my house with an amplifier shouting ‘surrender now’ attracting all my neighbors. The robbers had used my stolen documents to access the banking hall. While recording a statement with the police I received a call claiming that I had caused an accident and promised to make good for the losses.
I realized that few among us really know what actually our most valuable asset is. Most of us might dearly hold on to our fancy car or the great house purchased recently as our most valuable belonging acquired through lifetime’s savings. Actually, it is not. You can repurchase your car or even the house, as probably you are insured against the loss. Your name, indeed, is the most valuable thing you have. Your stolen name can cause you the real devastation – emotional and financial – against which no insurance exists. Imagine the consequences of some one using your name to steal away money from your bank account or credit-card account!!! You are not only left bankrupt but even find yourself suddenly on the wrong side of law. There would be persistent phone calls from your billing companies combined with threats for the crimes you could neither have imagined doing even in your wildest dream, nor you have actually committed them. That’s what precisely identity theft is about which has become very common in today’s wired world. Some one suddenly becomes you and wipes you clean of your money, buys and resells properties in your name, and before you realize and the shock of loss sinks in the loss has been done.
The victims of identity theft lose not just money but undergo an immense trauma caused by the loss of reputation and credibility that can hardly be remedied easily. Identity theft has often been indulged in by not only white collar criminals but also terrorists who have used false identity.
Identity theft is not a new crime that has surfaced recently. However, unlike the crimes relating to identity theft in the past, the criminals have found the anonymity offered by new technologies to commit frauds in ingenious ways. As a consequence of pervasiveness of identity theft, and ease with which it can be committed as well as complexities involved in it for law enforcers, it is the number one crime among all consumer frauds, and close to ten million people are likely to be victimized. Identity theft has far more ramifications for the victims than any other similar crime. The monetary loss to the victim is perhaps the least painful among them all. The victim is not only rendered financially bankrupt in several cases but is also morally and socially demoralized. The loss of reputation in neighborhood and community is the kind of loss that can hardly be compensated. One, of the reasons the criminals accused of identity theft go unpunished is the lack of adequate legal mechanisms and loopholes that need to be plugged. However, greater deterrence must be put in place so that internet users might conduct their business transaction without fear and apprehensions; and terrorists and their links might be under the pressure of detection before defrauding innocent people.
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Although it may be impossible not to distribute your personal information wherever requirement may be mandatory, and consequently control their uses or misuses, however, one can reduce the risk of misuse of personal data and information by managing them wisely and cautiously.
