Thanks to years of campaigning by privacy advocates we have all become familiar with how easy it is for our identities to be stolen, not to mention the terrible consequences of such a theft. Yet a report by Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab recently revealed that our identity theft worries should now extend to the possible identity theft of our children.
In an attempt to reveal children's vulnerability to identity theft, CyLab scanned the identities of 42,000 children in the US and found some pretty eye opening results:
· 10% of the 42,000 children have had someone else use their social security number,
· The identities of these children allowed the thieves to open credit lines, cars, and even buy homes,
· The youngest identity theft victim was only five months old.
· It is easier to get Social Security numbers from people born after the 1990s.
What is the age distribution of Child Identity Theft?
source: CyLab
What are the thieves using the identities for?
source: CyLab
It’s no lie that our comfort levels when it comes to sharing personal information online have increased significantly over the past few years, with a big helping hand from social networks. Not to mention that younger generations see no harm when it comes to sharing information that we would be too scared of sharing only a couple of years ago.
As a very privacy centric company we are aware of the risks that our personal information revealed can cause us all. Moby's founding goal is to create a product that is always in sync with our comfort levels of sharing. Hence we feel it is our responsibility to warn our users and fellow ActiveRainers of any possible attacks that are going on the online world.
The main point of the report isn’t to scare us all into spiral of hopelessness, but rather provide us with a wake-up call to safeguard the identities of our children. It is all to easy to assume that no-one with a beating heart could possibly want to ruin the life of a 5 month old by stealing his/her identity. Just as we due diligently watch out for our own identity we should spend a little extra time ensuring that our children’s identities are kept safe.In the particular case of childhood identity theft please take the time to head over to My Secure Cyberspace, where you can find tools that help parents protect their children from possible online attacks, including identity theft.
Were you aware that such attacks were going on? Do you have any experience with someone whose identity has been stolen? We would love to hear your own opinions so that we can all take extra precautions when it comes our online privacy.
Take care and be safe everyone!
The Moby Team
Do Some Good while you are here! Moby is currently working hard to donate $5,000 for SafePlace Charity. As many of you know we are launching Moby on the iPhone and Android platforms soon and we have created a website where you can register with your e-mail to be on the waiting list:
As a sign of appreciation for your curiosity on our launch, we will be donating $1 for every e-mail registration we receive on www.whatismoby.com - it is Moby who is donating the $1.
As an added fun tid-bit we are also awarding a lucky registrant with an iPad2 when you refer atleast 3 friends to register their e-mail too!
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