According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates in 1 year, as many as 10 million people discover that they are victims of some form of identity theft, translating into reported losses exceeding $50 billion.
A recent report of Market Research Media U.S. Federal Cybersecurity Market Forecast 2010-2015 predicts that the Federal government will spend $55 billion over the next five years to fight cyber crime.
The loss of personally identifiable information, such as an individual’s Social Security number, name, and date of birth can result in serious harm, including identity theft. Identity theft is a serious crime that impacts millions of individuals each year. Identity theft occurs when such information is used without authorization to commit fraud or other crimes. While progress has been made protecting personally identifiable information in the public and private sectors, challenges remain.
Several steps have been taken, both in terms of legislation and administrative actions to combat identity theft at the federal, state and local levels, although efforts to assist victims of the crime once it has occurred remain somewhat piecemeal. While there is no one law that regulates the overall use of personally identifiable information by all levels and branches of government, numerous federal laws place restrictions on public and private sector entities’ use and disclosure of individuals’ personal information in specific instances, including the use and disclosure of Social Security Numbers (SSN) - a key piece of information that is highly valuable to identity thieves. One intention of some of these laws is to prevent the misuse of personal information for purposes such as identity theft. Despite efforts to prevent identity theft, vulnerabilities remain and can be grouped into several areas, including display and use of Social Security numbers, availability of personal information through information resellers, security weaknesses in federal agency information systems, and data security breaches. Persistent weaknesses appear in five major categories of information system controls, including access controls which ensure that only authorized agency personnel can read, alter, or delete data. As a result, federal systems and sensitive information are at increased risk of unauthorized access and disclosure, modification, or destruction, as well as inadvertent or deliberate disruption of system operations and services. Federal agencies continue to experience numerous security incidents that could leave sensitive personally identifiable information in federal records vulnerable to identity theft.
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