Loss of Personal Info As Stressful As Losing a Job

An anonymous reader writes "Americans feel most vulnerable about the loss or theft of their personal or financial information, according to a national survey. 54% of Americans said the prospect of losing this data 'extremely concerned' them. Losing personal or financial information ranked similar to concern over job loss and not being able to provide healthcare for their family. In terms of specific risks within the online threat landscape, identity theft ranked as the chief fear. Nearly a third of Americans reported identity theft as their greatest concern to personal safety and security on the Internet. The fear of someone hacking into their financial information or accounts ranked a close second, with a quarter of Americans listing it as their greatest worry."

Comments

It's even worse than a job

[Drakkenmensch]

You can get a new job within hours of losing the old one. You can't get banks and the police to trust you again THAT quickly after your identity's been abused to commit frauds.

Re:It's even worse than a job

[Kepesk]

Hah, agreed. I have friends with normally in-demand skills who have been looking for a job for a year.

I once fell for a cleverly-crafted internet scam. The ten minutes it took for me to get my bank card canceled felt like my boss had pulled me into the office and chewed me out. So.... I'd say this is about accurate.

And yet..

[Haedrian]

And yet I'm positive many have no anti-virus,put lots of interesting information on their facebook or whatever, and click interesting links.

And yet....

[sdo1]

... those same people will continue to use their pet's name as the password to their online bank account.

-S

Had my age and hair color stolen, was terrible

[noidentity]

One day I woke up to find that my age and hair color had been stolen. It was awful walking around being ageless and having hair with no color. Fortunately, I found that an ex-friend had stolen, and took them back from him. I could never figure out what use he had for them, but it's nice to have them back.

Re:this story isn't about amnesia

[AltairDusk]

The problem is not the information itself, the problem is what a thief can do with that information. Since you seem to be hinting at the copyright debate tell me: How can I harm someone using the information found in a song? That song/movie/software/etc does not allow me to sign up for credit cards, loans, bank accounts and more in the author's name. If I steal your identity I can rack up all kinds of debt in your name leaving you to foot the bill or prove it wasn't you that bought all those things.

It seems to me that while most of the focus in preventing identity theft is on preventing access to this information in the first place a second avenue for addressing the problem is mostly ignored. It is far too easy to sign up for a credit card or other forms of credit while providing the bare minimum of proof that you are who you claim to be. If more effort was placed into ensuring identity before issuing the credit we could cut down the number and expense of identity theft cases.

Re:As a victim of identity theft...

[countertrolling]

You need to deal with... You need to prove... that...

We need to pas laws that make it their problem.. We should just be able to report it and that should be the end of it from our point of view. And we should shouldn't allow information to carry that kind of power to victimize us so easily.. The problem won't go away until we do that... This is the banks/credit agencies/governments'(ours) fault that this is happening at all. We shouldn't tolerate it.