January 19, 2009 by Terry.

here are a few stats, from itrc:

• 167 data breaches occurred in the first quarter of 2008 affecting 8.3 million people.
• As of April 22, 2008, 205 data breaches have occurred this year.
• Over 200 million people have had their identities compromised in a data breach since 2005.

•  2007 Data Breach Breakdown:

24.5% government/military agencies
24.7% from educational institutions
29.3% from general businesses
14.5% from health care facilities / companies
7% from banking / credit / financial services

Posted in IDTheft Stats | Print | No Comments »

January 19, 2009 by Terry.

Medical identity theft occurs when someone uses a person’s name and sometimes other parts of their identity — such as insurance information — without the person’s knowledge or consent to obtain medical services or goods, or uses the person’s identity information to make false claims for medical services or goods. Medical identity theft frequently results in erroneous entries being added to existing medical records, and can involve the creation of fictitious medical records in the victim’s name, ultimately leading to issues such as canceled insurances, being put into a coma due to improper treatment because of erroneous medical data, or even death.

Medical identity theft is a crime that can cause great harm to its victims. Yet, despite the profound risk it carries, it is the least [for now] studied and most poorly documented of the cluster of identity theft crimes. It is also the most difficult to fix after the fact, because victims have limited rights and recourses, not affording the attorney costs to help [until now]. Medical identity theft typically leaves a trail of falsified information in medical records that can plague victims’ medical and financial lives for years.

Posted in IDT - Medical | Print | No Comments »

January 19, 2009 by Terry.

Two sources of IDentity Theft & Data Breach information areas I watch are:

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse  &   Identity Theft Resource Center® (ITRC)

Of particular note from PRC’s website is this:

“A Chronology of Data Breaches — Over 251 million data records of U.S. residents have been exposed due to security breaches since Jan 05.”

That is 4 years ago, this month, that they started trackingthat data!  Keep in mind - How many people are there in the U.S.? About 300 Million - from newborn to long-lived.

I know my data has been breachd at least once.  Got the letter stating my data was on the source that was lost/stolen.

You may want to visit the Chronology of Data Breaches page and see if a company you know has been breached, possibly with your data.  Why? - An article reported indicate that about 90 percent of businesses are at risk of losing your personal information.

Posted in IDTheft Stats, Resources | Print | No Comments »