How to prevent identity theft Speech or Presentation

How to prevent identity theft - Speech or Presentation Example While such crimes are easy to commit, their complexity makes them hard to investigate and prosecute them. It calls for each of us to identify-smart and make sure such crimes are stopped from spreading. It is a challenging task, but easy to win. What simply needs to be done is to follow the tips given by the experts, exercise extra care and we shall all be ahead of these identity thieves by a big step. It is a responsibility of each of us to rise to the occasion to prevent identity theft. But before we are ready to take up the task, we need to be informed of what identity theft mean. This paper is a presentation of how to prevent an identity thief. Identity theft, or identity fraud, according to the United States Department of Justice, are terms that are used when referring to all forms of crime in which an individual wrongfully obtains and makes use of personal data of that other person in some way involving deception typically for personal, economic gains (National Crime Prevention Council, 2005). Research has shown that by 2004, there were on average twenty million incidents involving identity theft in the U.S alone (Joseph, 2005). How this happens with all the securities in place, is a question everyone would want to know its exact answer. However, according to a study that was released by two research bodies (Better Business Bureau and Javelin Strategy), in early January 2005, most of the theft do take place offline, which is quite opposite of what majority of people might think (Joseph, 2005). The study found out that online information theft only accounts for about 11.6% of the total identity fraud cases. This, in essence, implies that limiting your use of own computer does not help much. Nonetheless, rushing into grabbing headline scandal that involve theft of thousands of personal records, coupled with the advent of pharming and phishing these involved in the theft might go a long way to the above figures dramatically. The findings of these studies, on the other hand, are extremely troubling. These studies indicate that almost half of the identity thefts are often committed by those people known to the victims. One other study in 2004, reported that on average 655,000 complaints that were registered with the agency, 60 percent were to do with fraud and 40 percent involving complaints of theft identity. Basing on the figures released by this study, the predominant form of identity theft was that of Credit card fraud that accounts for 30 percent of the theft reported. Utilities fraud was ranked second accounting for 20 percent of the identity theft. This was followed by Bank fraud that account for 17percent of identity theft. The FTC, as well conducted some study concerning theft committed on the internet, and it came up with 206,568 as a figure for the internet identity theft. It was also noted that about 89 percent of the victims said they suffered a financial loss, which was averaged at $1,440. Basing on these study Phoenix-Mesa- Scottsdale, Bernardino-Ontario, Las Vegas-paradise, and Riverside-San reported the highest number of identity theft. The FTC found out that of all that reported having been victimized in the U.S 8 percent aged 60 years and above with the largest number, 30 percent, falling in the range between 18 to 30 age group (Joseph, 2005). Following those figures, it becomes clear that identity theft is real and