Essay On Identity Theft

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“According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Fraud Survey 2010-11, an estimated total of 1.2 million Australians aged 15 years and over were victim of at least one incident of identity fraud in the 12 months prior to the survey interview..” (Afp.gov.au, 2014) Identity fraud is a type of fraud that involves illegally pretending to be somebody else for a beneficial gain. This can result in emotional and/or financial devastation. This is a very common legal issue facing Australian stakeholders, costing them a total of $1.4 billion AUD to date (Afp.gov.au, 2014). Identity theft has many consequences and issues that are involved with it. As a result of this, laws have been put in place just for identity theft. Different stakeholder groups have been affected by identity theft and have responded in many ways. In Australia, Around 4.4 million Australians (26 per cent) have now been affected by identity theft (Stevens & Coghlan, 2009). With this large number affected, there have been many cases against the culprits, which will be analysed through this essay. There are solutions to this problem that can be followed to ensure a solution to identity theft.

In regards to identity theft, there are many legal issues that arise as a result of it being started. As stated before, having your identity stolen can be both emotionally and financially devastating. Usually, to steal ones identity, the perpetrator would dishonestly trick the victim into thinking they are a representative of legitimate company (bank, phone company). This can result in credit card fraud, document fraud, or employment fraud, which leaves the victim financially, broke. (Military Libraries Division (DMIL), 2014)

Due to these issues that are a result of identit...

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...t were often over the phone or through email. These people who have been affected by identity theft were so easily tricked that it is a serious issue for other Australians. There can be no solution to stop identity theft as no matter what is done, people will still attempt to steal any information they can from easily persuaded people.

The solution is to make the people of Australia aware of identity theft and make them do their homework and think twice. In relation to the expert opinions given by Siciliano, he says that it is the victim’s job to watch out for any chance of identity theft and lists the ways in which this can be done. This can help to stop identity theft. Not only this, but to increase the prison sentence and to create an individual section of law only for identity theft to have more precise and fair court orders for the seriousness of the case.

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