Identity Theft is a Worldwide issue which mostly affects people in Western Europe and North America.
Identity Theft is a crime where fraudsters steal sufficient personal information for nefarious purposes.
The main use of a stolen identity is to gain credit or loans from banks and credit brokers - in the UK there are 50,000 such cases a year.
However Identity theft can also be used to steal money from victims by accessing bank and savings accounts already opened by them.
Currently it is estimated that in the USA there are 7-10 million people who are victims of a variant of identity theft a year.
It is considered a serious crime and can have serious repercussions for victims such as them having problems raising credit themselves. Notwithstanding the time and effort required to resolve the mess the identity theft directly causes.
