Identity Theft Check

The Identity Fraud Communications Awareness Group is warning visitors to South Africa about potential scams that could hit World Cup Tourists. Neil Munroe, a spokesman for the group, is stating that football fans will be easy targets as they will stand out from the crowd and identity theft is already a major risk in South Africa. But Munroe claims that with extra vigilance fans will still be able to enjoy the experience and all the wonderful things South Africa has to offer. Fans have been advised to be particularly cautious when using credit cards and to remember the old rule that if something sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Compared to the same period in 2009, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service has revealed an increase of nearly 20% in identity fraud. CIFAS also commented that the compared with the first quarter of 2009, the number of victims of impersonation increased by over 20% this year. In the first three months of 2010, 27,000 victims of impersonation were recorded by CIFAS Members. Other public and private sector bodies are also alerting the public to be aware of the increased risk in identity theft this year. The identity fraud communications awareness group is particularly warning World Cup tourists about potential scams which might give fans a financial hangover when they return to the UK.

US and German government officials are planning to launch an inquiry regarding the disclosure from Google that it ‘mistakenly’ collected sensitive data from consumers over wireless networks. For years Google’s street view cars have ‘accidentally’ collected personal information, which could include email messages and passwords. Germany’s commissioner for data protection has called for a detailed probe into Google’s activity. Google claims it has never used the data and it accidentally collected it due to a piece of legacy code in the machines installed in Google’s fleet of cars. Regulators in countries around the world will be approached by Google as to how to dispose of the data.

Facebook has finally admitted that they have made some serious privacy mistakes over the past few months and have promised to simplify the privacy controls on the site.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, has stated that in the next few weeks they will also offer users the option to disable all third-party services. He explained that Facebook wanted to give its users the ability to control privacy settings at a fine granularity level but this has not been what the majority of users actually wanted. Last week it emerged that, contrary to its privacy policy, Facebook passed users names and locations to third parties.
Facebook’s real customers are its advertisers and it is in Zuckerberg’s commercial interests to make user supplied data as widely available as possible. Therefore it will be important to ensure Facebook is checked against delivery of its promises.

The UK’s coalition government will refuse to refund people who have applied and paid for an identity card, according to the Sunday Telegraph
A bill is expected to abolish the cards, along with parliamentary and electoral reform, in the Queen’s speech on Tuesday 25th May.
The Telegraph obtained a leaked version of the Queen’s Speech which along with identity card legislation also contains details of financial service regulation and changes to the DNA database.
In an interesting twist, it has been stated that once the cards have passed their expiry date they could be worth a lot of money in a few years time due to being a collector’s item!