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Miscellaneous

by Brett

Tue, May 24th 2005 5:19pm





ID Theft On The Rise, So Are Misguided Reactions

from the bad-medicine dept

The increasing rate of identity theft -- or at least its increased media coverage -- has consumers worried the world over. But a survey in the U.K. shows that what people are doing with these legitimate concerns leaves something to be desired. For starters, their fears of identity theft are causing some of them to completely cease their online shopping and banking. How this will help protect them from dumpster diving or a major security breach is anyone's guess. Indeed, most identity theft probably occurs offline, rather than online. Still, survey respondents were four times more likely to worry about online checkouts than what companies do with their data. What else do they think should be done? More than half the respondents said the government's proposed ID card would best protect them against identity theft, ignoring that it would probably make it easier to steal someone's identity by providing thieves with a single, simple point of failure. But of course, that would be an offline concern, and no one seems all too concerned about that. It all seems like just another case of misguided security fears.

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  1.  
    identicon
    dorpus, May 24th, 2005 @ 11:02pm

    How about kiddie cops?

    One city has taken to hiring 6-year-olds as police officers.

    http://forum.japantoday.com/Akita_Hires_6%2Dyear%2Dold_Police_Officers/m_452058/tm.htm

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    John, May 25th, 2005 @ 11:27am

    Cops Don't Care

    Having both been a victim of and knowing other who have been victims of ID theft, the most common frustration is the fact that most police departments simply don't care about identity theft. They consider it a low priority and too complex to investigate so they simply hand you a police report and leave it to you to handle all the collection agencies and banks that will hound you for weeks. The state of Washington, for example, touts on the Attorney General's website that the state has "one of the toughest identity theft laws in the nation" yet a friend who is going through this stuff right now was recently told by the police in Bellevue that "it isn't our problem." In my own case, the police even initially refused to take a police report claiming that "you should sue the guy, it's a civil matter." All the laws in the world won't help if the useless cops simply don't care.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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