Big ID Thefts Not To Be Feared

goldseries writes "A new study released by ID Analytics says that only about 1 out of every 1000 stolen identities are actually used, due to the amount of time it takes to use the identity, limiting a single thief to 250 identities a year. The likelihood that your information will be used increases drastically when the size a the theft is small. So size does not matter, in identity thefts at least; the identity thefts you need to worry about aren't the big ones heard on the news but the small unreported ones." From the article: "While the findings will provide some comfort to consumers whose credit cards are lost or lifted, or whose sensitive information is compromised when, for instance, a laptop is stolen, as recently happened at Chicago-based Boeing, some of ID Analytics' suggestions could be controversial. The company suggests, for instance, that companies shouldn't always notify consumers of data breaches because they may be unnecessarily alarming people who stand little chance of being victimized."

Comments

Of Course You Should Inform Them!

[SeanDuggan]

Unless the companies who lost the information are willing to be liable for any and all damages caused by the identity theft, not limitted to damaged credit ratings, credibility damage, and all monetary losses, they should definitely inform consumers. That would be like not informing people of airplane safety measures "because very few planes actually crash."

Not in the hospital setting

[PIPBoy3000]

I work for a healthcare organization and one of the applications I support is this system for merging multiple medical records into a single one. We have a team of people whose sole purpose is to take multiple accounts and turn them into one. This extra accounts can be created accidentally, such as when a Jane Doe comes into the ER and their identity is later established. It can happen on accident, such as when a registration person creates a new account instead of finding the old one.

In the last couple years, identity theft and identity fraud have resulted in huge inputs to the system. Where we once had to merge up to three identities, the system now supports merging up to ten. What happens is that a single individual will steal a bunch of different identities and then use them all, typically to get drugs.

So, while the risk of your credit card being stolen and used may be low in certain cases, don't lose your other "proof of identity" stuff: driver's licenses, insurance cards, and your social security number.