It’s the Holiday Season: Do You Know Where Your Child’s Identity Is?

Rita Arens — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 05:58:05 -0600

‘Tis the season to talk of shopping, and with shopping comes identity theft. I know, I know, I sound as paranoid as an old lady, but as my father always says, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Hey, it happens. Just ask the U.K., in which every family with children is now at risk for identity theft due to some blundering at the government level.

An August 2007 Experian Gallup poll revealed children’s identities are most likely to be stolen on the Internet (duh) or from cell phones leased in the child’s name.

According to the ID Theft Data Clearinghouse as reported by the FTC, over 10,000 identity theft complaints were filed on behalf of victims under 18 years old in 2006. This is up from 6,512 reported cases in 2003.

A new August 2007 Experian-Gallup survey revealed that 74 percent of consumers feel it would be “easy” or “somewhat easy” to steal a child’s identity. Forty-six percent of parents surveyed think it is “likely” or “somewhat likely” that their child could have his or her personal information stolen.

Instances of child identity theft will likely to continue to grow as minors become more active online and on other information sharing platforms.

Indeed, Wikipedia lists social media sites as a top method for identity theft.

Techniques for obtaining information

• Stealing mail or rummaging through rubbish (dumpster diving)

• Retrieving information from redundant equipment which has been disposed of carelessly, e.g. at public dump sites, given away without proper sanitizing etc.

• Stealing payment or identification cards or the information on them (pickpocketing, "drive-by" scanning of RF-enabled cards/tags)

• Eavesdropping on public transactions to obtain personal data (shoulder surfing)

• Stealing personal information in computer databases (Trojan horses, hacking)

• Infiltration of organizations that store large amounts of personal information

• Impersonating a trusted organization in an electronic communication (phishing)

• Obtaining castings of fingers for falsifying fingerprint identification.

• browsing social network (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo etc) sites, online for personal details that have been posted by users

• Simply researching about the victim in government registers, at the internet, Google, and so on.

Most identity theft can be avoided, either by the children themselves or by the executives of the companies providing applications to serve them. Kim Cameron demands action on the part of IT and business executives:

I urge fellow architects, IT leaders, policy thinkers and technologically aware politicians to consider very seriously the advice of advocates like Terry Dowty. We can deeply benefit from building safe and privacy-enhancing systems that are secure enough to withstand attack and procedural error. Let’s work together to translate this thinking to those who are less technical. We need to explain that all the functionality required for government and business can be provided in ways that enhance privacy, rather than diminish it or set society up for failure.

As a parent, what can you do? Even blog-loving me wants to forbid my daughter from touching the computer until she’s 18 a lot of the time, but I know to do that would be like trying to keep her from ever eating sugar – impossible, impractical, and probably overkill. The children are going to go online sometime. However, just as you talk to your kids about crossing the street safely, you need to talk to your kids about putting personal information out on MySpace or Facebook; watching out for “friends” they don’t know in the real world; sharing personal information, such as last names, addresses, or schools they attend; and watching what they download, and from whom.

To that last point, here are some tips from YourIdentitySafe.com :

To secure the personal information stored on your computer, the FTC suggests that you:

• Set up the file-sharing software very carefully. If you don't check the proper settings when you install the software, you could open access not just to the files you intend to share, but also to other information on your hard drive, like your tax returns, email messages, medical records, photos, or other personal documents.

• Talk with your family about file-sharing. Parents may not be aware that their children have downloaded file-sharing software on the family computer and that they may have exchanged games, videos, music, pornography, or other material that may be inappropriate for them. Kids may not understand the security and other risks involved with file-sharing and may install the software incorrectly, giving anyone on the Internet access to the family's private computer files.

• Be aware of spyware. Some file-sharing programs install other software known as spyware. Spyware monitors a user's browsing habits and then sends that data to third parties.

• Use and update your anti-virus software regularly. Files you download could be mislabeled, hiding a virus or other unwanted content. Use anti-virus software to protect your computer from viruses you might pick up from other users through the file-sharing program.

• Close your connection. In some instances, closing the file-sharing program window does not actually close your connection to the network. That allows file-sharing to continue and could increase your security risk. "Always on" connections may allow others to copy your shared files at any time.

I’m not the first BlogHer to talk about identity theft this season. Nina Smith, Virginia DeBolt and Maria Niles also have done an excellent job. We don’t need to hide under our laptops, but we do need to teach our kids to watch their backs in the virtual world as well as they do in the real one.

BlogHer - It’s the Holiday Season: Do You Know Where Your Child’s Identity Is? - Comments

It’s the Holiday Season: Do You Know Where Your Child’s Identity Is?