Identity theft is a growing problem in the U.S., with complaints rising 73 percent from 2001 to 2002. But there's a mistaken impression that identity theft is carried out merely by rogue hackers. That's not the case. If . . .
Identity theft is a growing problem in the U.S., with complaints rising 73 percent from 2001 to 2002. But there's a mistaken impression that identity theft is carried out merely by rogue hackers. That's not the case. If your credit history is stolen from a database, the thief is less likely to be a hacker than an employee of the company that owns the database. Yet businesses are still lax when it comes to policing insiders who have access to confidential data.

I believe this crime will not stop until the government steps in to regulate corporate privacy policies, and companies that handle your personal data are held liable for any abuses carried out by their employees.

Identity theft has been making headlines for months. Last fall, the feds broke what may be the largest identity theft case in U.S. history (total losses from the case are estimated at $2.7 million). Federal investigators arrested in November 2002 a help-desk employee of a third-party credit agency, Teledata Communications, who was able to access confidential information about the company's corporate clients.

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