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Having Your ID Stolen Leads to Job Loss, Prosecution
ConfusedVorlon writes "The BBC reports on the sad case of Simon Bunce. Mr. Bunce had his identity stolen, and credit cards were made to capitalize on the theft. Some of those cards were used at sites offering child pornography, and as a result Mr. Bunce was swept up in Operation Ore. The poor man was prosecuted for his 'crime', and was eventually found innocent, but in the meantime he lost his job. It took him six months to find another at a quarter of the salary. 'The police's computer technicians take several months to examine [his computers and records], and Mr Bunce could not afford to wait to repair the damage done to his reputation. "I knew there'd been a fundamental mistake made and so I had to investigate it." Recent surveys suggest that as many as one in four Britons have been affected by it. In 2007 more than 185,000 cases of identity theft were identified by Cifas, the UK's fraud prevention service, an increase of almost 8% on 2006.'"
I have personally experienced what an accusation can do to one's employability... not even a conviction, just an arrest or an accusation. Is this an acceptable part of the justice system? I don't think so. While it's important to 'care for the victims' it's EQUALLY important to protect the rights of the accused until there is enough evidence to prove something is wrong.
I was accused of aggravated battery and for 6 months I was unemployable. Though the charges were thrown out my life was ruined, my family's future and security was in question, my wife left me (wow I should write a country song) and I was treated like a leper. Thanks a lot over ambitious prosecutor, especially since I have no recourse over what you did to me for nothing.
I'm doing fine now & on top of the world career-wise. I have my pride though & those employers who were happy to hire me once the that portion of my life was over got a thanks but no thanks letter from me- I see their true colors and how they would treat someone based on a rumor and nothing more. I wont forget.
I work in the finance industry and I know that for many employers reputation is everything. If an employee messes up, even on his/her own time, it could be grounds for dismissal. I've said a friendly goodbye to a co-worker one day only to come in the next day and see their desk cleaned out. So, while I can understand why the person in the article was let go, at least initially, it is hard to see why things weren't straighted up faster. If I was an employer I might be concerned about a lawsuit of some type coming back at me for improper dismissal.
You misunderstand the legal system. First off, in UK there is no presumption of innocence.
Next, while the court system in the US has a presumption of innocence, the police do not. If they think they have cause to think you might be guilty, they are going to arrest you. It is then up to the prosecutor to decide if they think you can be convicted or not. Then, finally, you get to court where there is this presumption of innocence.
Scenario: Build a database with every possible social security number.
Next, start gathering whatever information you can and entering it in that database. By theft or purchase or whatever.
How long will it be before you can, digitally, "prove" that you are any person in that database?
The attacks you are talking about are just the tip of the iceberg. It would be possible to perform such fraud on a nation-wide basis. Against just about any person in the nation.
And our system is NOT equipped to deal with such.
So what...if people can do your job for less, then why should employers be racist and only hire white people who get paid alot more for the same amount of work. If you want to make lots of money, get an education, and a job where the demand is high, and supply is low. If you want to work at minimum wage, there are plenty of jobs out there. If you don't make enough money, spend less money. Simple enough, us immigrants have been doing it for a long time (I'm from India though, not mexican.) If you want to work in call center for a $1 an hour, go to India. People live way beyond their means on inflated salaries, and complain when there is some competition introduced to the job market, by people who are willing to work harder for less money. If capitalism is so great, then what's the problem?
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
This is more to do with the very poor quality of the data provided to the UK by the US police who obtained the 7000+ credit card records that were used in Operation Ore.
In most cases, absolutely no forensic work was undertaken, arrests were simply made without assessing the evidence. In some case people with sufficient technical nous have been able to prove that their cards were used fraudulently, but many people have accepted cautions that will remain on the records for ever, and a significant number of people have committed suicide, often when the evidence has subsequently been shown to be false.
What is needed is for the police to be liable to prosecution for neglect in cases where evidence is not assessed correctly before an arrest is made. The child porn aspect of this is used to tip their hand and force action before thought. The system is broken, and after all, who cares when a load of paedophiles are dead/jobless/ostracised?
-- BtB
A wrongful dismissal lawsuit might be helpful here. The man was innocent and the company should have supported him. If they did not trust him, they could have put him on leave. He should not have been fired unless his job performance was poor and even then they should have offered help.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216934&cid=17629948
The credit card companies know how to fix the issue, but it is not in their best interest to do so, so it's not going to happen without government intervention, and since the financial institutions own most of the politicians, well, you get the point...
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"The only way Governments can induce citizens to surrender their rights is convincing them that by doing so, they will gain a measure of safety in exchange." - Thomas Jefferson
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of Human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt
The system is designed to let them get away with it. There were laws passed recently so that if you don't notify your bank about possible identity theft within 60 days of the occurrence, you are responsible for paying it (in the US). One of the things thieves like to do is change your address or open a new card with a new address. Most of the time the banks don't confirm this because they know you will get stuck with the bill.
/. articles on that, and Experian is suing them).
Then of course you have SSN theft. Do you think the social security administration is going to prosecute people who report taxes on someone else's SSN number? Nope, because they can try and collect it from owner is the SSN number which gives them more money than trying to find the purp.
The system isn't going to change soon, so find a way to protect yourself as much as you can.
There are several companies that offer service to protect you, research them and see the differences and find one that will protect you the most (I don't recommend Lifelock, see previously
So far the one I found I like the best is offered by Prepaid Legal - they monitor credit, medical, criminal and financial. If you find something better let me know.
Are there people who are child molesters? Yes. Is everyone who is charged, convicted, or treated for child molestation a child molester? Nope.
What happens with this crime and several others is they become weapons for women to use against men. It's very simple; accuse your husband / boyfriend of this crime and the police will arrest him immediately. Make that complaint Friday evening and you'll have 3 or 4 days to clean out the bank accounts, conceal assets, etc. before he can bail out.
Does this happen? You better believe it does. More often than most people can imagine. This abuse of the legal system (and others like it) are brought to you courtesy of your elected representatives who are giving you what you ask for: crack down on child molesters, wife abusers, etc. Too many are getting away, let's make the laws a bit more general and a bit more "guilty until proven innocent". For the win, make them so that the accused is guilty until proven guilty.
Nope, not me. But I've seen this scenario play out time and time again. I feel bad for what our country has become and cast a worried eye at England. They seem to be leading the way in the race to Fascism...
"He had nothing to hide because he was innocent, so everything worked out in the end, right~"
Fixed it for you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I was in Fred Meyers grocery store last weekend when over the intercom came an announcement for a 'Lost Child Alert'. This was for a 2 year old girl and they described the clothing she was wearing. In a normal society I would have looked around in concern for the child's well-being. In all honesty, I looked around out of fear that she might have been anywhere near me for no other reason than self preservation. Sad that it has come to that. (2 minutes later there was a 'Cancel Lost Child' announcement).
I picture the scenario as such:
... and scary as hell, I imagine. However, it's still an inferior threat.) A blade may scare away that burglar with a knife, or the rapist with a box cutter, but will do nothing when they have a pistol, and may even aggravate their intentions.
Person enters my house without permission.
Person is either unarmed, or armed.
Person's intentions are either to steal from me or to hurt/rape my family.
Now, finding that an invader is in my home, I do not know how armed or hostile the adversary is. In such a case, it seems imprudent to be overly optimistic. If my goal is to maximize the safety of my family, I need to assume the worst: the adversary is both armed, and intends to harm my family. My threat-response choices should be based on this expectation.
So, versus an armed hostile adversary, my options are, in increasing levels of severity:
1) Run away. Get everyone out of the house, in the car, and Far Away.
2) Threaten adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
3) Harm adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
4) Kill adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
Let us examine the viability of each of these.
1) Run Away.
If this is possible, I want to do it. I'd much rather avoid confrontation, and make sure that no one gets hurt. However, in the case of a home invasion, the invader is quite likely to be between my family and the exit. If the adversary is hostile, we could be at risk. (Yes, we could open a window and escape that way; this isn't always guaranteed.)
Additionally, if I were to find the adversary already harming my family (or me), it's too late to do this (to an extent).
2) Threaten Adversary.
-- Call the police, and notify the adversary that they are on the way. Unarmed assailants are likely to be scared off, but I am not optimistic that an armed assailant would be convinced to go. They might take hostages. I realize this is not reasonable, but crazy people, psychos, or people who are high on $Drug are unlikely to be thinking completely rationally.
-- Any other threat I might make (to harm or kill the adversary myself) requires that the adversary believe I can and will do such a thing. Thus, this requires that I arm myself in a manner which will be percieved as a threat by all attackers.
A knife, sword, or spear won't do. A firearm is the weapon of choice, and I'd prefer a shotgun. Anything less is an automatic failure versus an assailant with a gun. (Yes, I know about the lethal distance. Yes, a short spear would be fantastic for CQ fighting in my house
Threats also have a chance to escalate into a combat situation ("You're welcome to try, have at thee!"). In such a case, I'd much prefer that I have an unfair advantage.
3) Harm Adversary.
This is both legally and ethically problematic, to me. If someone is an active threat to the life of my family or me, I do not feel it is prudent to try to "injure" them (not to mention that it's likely to impede my performance, as "shooting to wound" doesn't work). If someone is NOT an active threat to my life or my family, then I would be liable (legally) for having assaulted the invader. Anyone that I'd feel it's ethical to harm in self defense is an enemy which would be better completely unable to harm me, and therefore dead.
If I could disarm them safely, and then further ensure that they couldn't hurt me or my family, that see
You make a good point. I would go further and say that the phrase "identity theft" is deliberately promoted by corporations and governments as a way of avoiding responsibility for the problem. Unfortunately, all indications are that it has worked spectacularly so far.
The phrase "identity theft" implies that you are responsible for keeping your identity away from the evil thieves. Never mind that an identity cannot be kept secret, that it cannot be replaced, and that there is basically no way to prevent someone from "stealing" your identity. Any solution to "identity theft" that involves theft prevention is guaranteed to fail, because one's identity by definition cannot be concealed.
The phrase "identity fraud" emphasizes the real nature of the crime: it is a fraud. This fraud involves the perpetrator and the company or entity that deals with the perpetrator. It does not involve you, so there is no way you can prevent it from happening. An honest attempt at solving the problem of identity fraud would start with the companies that cause the problem in the first place. However, since this is exactly what big business does not want, they prefer to use the deceptive term "identity theft" instead. By misleading the public in this way, the powers that be insure that a true solution to the problem (one that starts with them) will never be achieved.
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
I'm tired of being treated like a criminal because I have a penis. Case in point: I was at the library, my wife and I had driven seperately because I had to leave for work right after we were done there. We have children, two in fact. I had found a couple of books, checked them out and wandered over to the kids section to find my wife. She wasn't there, so I moved on to a few other areas that she might frequent. I then went back to the kids section looking for her when the librarian more or less hostily interrogated me for being there. Looked very smug when I got pissed and left, then looked embarassed when I came back with my two daughters in tow. Did I get an apology? No, because it's acceptable to harass a man when he's in the kids section. Thank you fucking Dateline, I can no longer even talk to children despite the fact that I think they are usually far more interesting and intelligent than their parents.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
You play way too many FPS games. Get yourself a loud alarm that you can trigger if you suspect there's an intruder in the house. Chances are they'll run away and find somewhere quieter to rob. Also it means you don't risk shooting the electricity meter reader, or some neighbor kid visiting your kids.
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