Scottsdale
Yesterday The New York Times ran an interesting article about identity theft in the Internet age. The state of Arizona has the highest number of cases of identity theft in the country, almost twice the national average. The Times article begins with a story detailing how one Arizona thief operated. In Scottsdale a 23-year-old drug user was arrest for identity theft. When police question him he revealed the source of his victims information was the Internet. According to the thief’s story he accessed his victim’s divorce record online. The divorce record provided him his victim’s name, address, bank account numbers and signature. This particular thief specialized in printing checks in other peoples name. Arizona police are having trouble keeping up with the criminal use of technology…but they are trying. In 2003 the Federal Trade Commission did a survey that showed about 1 in every 30 Americans had their Identity stolen in 2002. In 2005 the number of victims declined slightly, but the amount of money stolen increased dramatically. Legislatures accross the country are struggling to find a way to make public records “easily and safely” available over the Internet. The state of Florida is requiring all social security and bank/credit card numbers be stripped from online records by 2007. Whether other states follow this path remains to be seen.
