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Identity Theft/Fraud -What, How, Why and protecting yourself
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Below is one of our free research papers on Identity Theft/Fraud -What, How, Why and protecting yourself. If the term paper below is not exactly what you're looking for, you can search our essay database for other topics.
This Paper is being written as a general overview of Identity Theft. What is Identity theft? How does it occur? How do we protect ourselves from this happening to us? These are some of the questions I will try to answer as we delve into the topic of Identity theft.
First off, what is identity theft? Well, the basic definition according to Wikipedia is that it is a term used that is to refer to fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. The term dates to 1960 and is actually a misnomer, since it is not inherently possible to steal an identity, only to use it. The person whose identity is used can suffer various consequences when he or she is held responsible for the perpetrator's actions. In many countries specific laws make it a crime to use another person's identity for personal gain. Identity theft is somewhat different from identity fraud. However, the terms are often used interchangeably. Identity fraud is the result of identity theft. Someone can steal or appropriate someone's identifying information without actually committing identity fraud. The best example of this is when a data breach occurs. There has been very little evidence to link ID fraud to data breaches. A Government Accountability Office study determined that "most breaches have not resulted in detected incidents of identity theft". However the title of that report is "Data Breaches Are Frequent, but Evidence of Resulting Identity Theft Is Limi...
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