A friend of mine recounted to me how horrified she was when she just recently discovered that she has another account on Facebook, also under her real name and with her photos uploaded from her inactive Friendster account, which is accessible to everyone. A case of identity theft? Identity theft refers to a kind of fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to obtain benefits.
According to Identity Theft Resource Center and other sources, identity theft can be sub-divided into five categories:
§ business/commercial identity theft (using another's business name to obtain credit)
§ criminal identity theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime)
§ financial identity theft (using another's identity to obtain goods and services)
§ identity cloning (using another's information to assume his or her identity in daily life)
§ medical identity theft (using another's information to obtain medical care or drugs) (Source: Wikipedia)
Some individuals, however, choose to impersonate others for non-financial reasons. My friend’s case may actually fall under this category. Her impersonator could not benefit financially in impersonating her in this way. Identity theft is becoming a bigger and serious problem since the Internet now plays a major part in the lives of many people. She reported this account to the Facebook moderators, I’m just not sure of its status right now. I thought that she was more or less asking for it for not having taken enough precautions especially considering the risks involved in posting private photos of and information of herself in the Cyberspace. She could have at least made her account private, for friends viewing only or just simply deleted her Friendster account if she was not using it anymore. It is so easy for anyone to obtain any personal information about an individual through the internet-- my friend’s case in point.
This form of identity theft is just one of its many forms. Some examples which are more serious and bring about graver and costly consequences include situations when someone uses your credit card to order goods for themselves, in other cases they will apply for credit cards, set up bank accounts, and take advantage of your good credit rating.
Some tips to avoid identity theft: (as culled from the article written by Jim Faller of http://computers.6ln.com a website with information about viruses, spyware, adware, backups, data recovery and computer security.)
1. There are many online free accounts such as yahoo, hotmail or grail, and most of them can interface with popular email clients like outlook or outlook express. Use one of them for all of your shopping transactions. Disguise your online identity.
2. Rotate your passwords. You should change your passwords every 6 to 12 months. If you suspect your passwords have been compromised change them as a safety precaution. Use only one credit card for all of your online purchases.
3. When you make purchases online make sure your transactions are secure. In the address bar you should see “https” and not “http”. There should also be small lock icon in your browser.
4. When you make your first transaction make sure your check the privacy policy, look for logos from consumer groups like Trust-E and the better business bureau. Click the logos to make sure they are authentic. Never open or fill out email requests for you to update you account or credit card settings via email.
Source: Wikipedia and http://filipinoinvestigator.ph/home/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1
photo from: http://ignitionblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/identity_theft.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment