Identity theft : the cybercrime of the millennium

increases. The uniqueness of these identifiers, in fact, is the basis of most identification systems, such as drivers license bureaus. The computer looks for a match on all of the identifiers, and when no such match is made, a new file is created. We can add man-made identifiers to this list. In the United States, the most important man made identifier is the Social Security number. The Social Security number functions as a base identifier because it should remain the same over an individual's lifetime. This is why the Social Security number has become such a requested item of information for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with income taxes or Social Security payments. Each Social Security number, in theory, should lead to records pertaining to only one person. This is why most state motor vehicle departments require the number, as do credit bureaus, insurance companies, college registrars, banks, the military, and other agencies. Only a few of these uses are codified in law. Other uses have become common practice because people supply whatever information a form requests. The nation's credit bureaus and insurance companies have long relied upon this. All of the credit bureaus use the individual's Social Security number as a file-retrieval tool, as we will see in later chapters. The growth of the Social Security number as a de facto national identity number means that no records with this number are very private. With just this number, your whole life history can be retrieved. This is the one fact that the identity thief counts on. The other fact that he knows is that the vast computerization of private records held by government and non-governmental organizations allows records from one agency or business to be quickly matched up with records held somewhere else. In a matter of a few minutes an identity thief can put together a dossier on nearly any individual in America, even if all he had to start with was a name. The fallout on victims of identity theft can be severe. In addition to having their credit ruined, victims can face more damaging consequences, such as being arrested for crimes they Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/identitytheftcybOOOOnewm ' '