The ID Theft Cloud Within the Silver Lining

The ID Theft Cloud within the Silver Lining

Since the beginning of the year, a couple of reports from analysts have been published touting a decline in ID theft and Internet fraud. Research firm Javelin Research and Strategy, and FBI- partner IC3 both published reports expressing the trend.

While this is excellent news, we believe there’s a key component that should be discussed when analyzing these results.

In 2007 and from the end of 2008 to 2009, there were two extremely large data breaches that resulted in the personal information of over 230 million consumers being exposed. If we posit that large amount of stolen data can take up to a year to be put to use, it would be fair to assume that 2008 and 2009 would have high incidences of ID theft. Seeing as how 2010 lacked a data breach with more than 100 million records exposed, it’s fair to assume ID theft complaints would come down.

Statistically, it appears that’s exactly what happened.

There is additional, important information that should be highlighted around the initial findings of ID theft and Internet fraud being down, and to point out the evolution of technological crime.

First, according to Javelin’s report, ID theft still happens once every four seconds in America. While instances of the crime are down, that is still a significantly regular occurrence.

Secondly, the victims of ID theft are finding it extremely difficult to both detect, and resolve the crime. For example, new-account fraud has grown significantly in terms of its complication. Typically, information stolen under this type of fraud takes more than 140 days to be detected, and more than 180 days to be resolved. The typical cost associated with this type of fraud? More than $1,200 out-of-pocket to consumers. (Both numbers are up significantly over 2009).

To be clear, simply checking credit reports and shredding documents is not enough for consumers to be protected. The complexity of ID theft demands that bankers offer a complete solution that can protect, detect and resolve ID theft for their customers.

Wayne Conte Executive Vice President Affinion Group

About Affinion Group Affinion Group is a global leader in providing identity protection and data security solutions to corporations and individuals. For over 35 years has been powering many of the world's leading personal data protection and breach resolution solutions offered by local, national and multi-national enterprises in the financial, retail and travel industries. The company currently protects over 10 million subscribers with services including IdentitySecure, PrivacyGuard, PC SafetyPlus and Hotline, and serves enterprise and government agencies with the data breach preparation and response tool, BreachShield. Affinion Group is part of the steering committee of the Identity Theft Prevention and Identity Management Standards Panel (IDSP). For more information please visit www.affiniongroup.com or Misha Bleymaier at 800-251-2148 ext 2492 | [email protected].