Identity Theft Check

Just to be clear from the outset, and to state the obvious, unless someone can take control of your mind or else create an exact clone of you, it is not possible to steal your identity. You remain ‘you’ regardless of what is stolen from you or stolen in your name.

‘Identity theft’ could perhaps more accurately be described as a sort of identity fraud that involves stealing money, items, services or resources, or to execute any other illegal act, by impersonating someone else. The theft can be from the person being impersonated or from a third party in the name of the impersonated person.

This means that the primary victim of identity theft  is the person whose identity has been ‘stolen’, as this person will either lose money from his or her bank account or will face the consequences of crimes done while using their identity. Suffice to say, misappropriating other people’s identities for personal gain is completely illegal in most countries.

The UK Home Office Identity Theft Steering Committee uses ‘Identity Crime’ as the catch-all term for Identity Theft, creating a False Identity or committing Identity Fraud.

The committee has forwarded the following definitions of the different sorts of identity crimes:

False Identity is either a fictitious (i.e. invented) identity, or else an existing (i.e. genuine) identity that has been altered to create a fictitious identity.
 
Identity Theft is when sufficient information about an identity is obtained to facilitate Identity Fraud, irrespective of whether, in the case of an individual, the victim is alive or dead.

Identity Fraud occurs when a False Identity or someone else’s identity details are used to support unlawful activity, or when someone avoids obligation/liability by falsely claiming that he/she was the victim of Identity Fraud.

It is worth noting however that these definitions are not legal binding and nor are they tied to specific criminal offences. They also apply to both individual and corporate Identity Crime.