Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 09-03-2017
A law expert has urged parents to educate their children about identity theft as unscrupulous criminals assume counterfeit identities to commit fraud and other crimes.
According to the South African Fraud Prevention Association, identity theft increased by 200 percent in South Africa between 2009 and 2015, with men aged between 30 and 40 living in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal the most likely targets.
David Loxton, partner at law firm Dentons SA in Johannesburg says even children are at risk of identity theft and is especially worrying that the theft of children’s identities was becoming more common.
“The general principle is that children will have a clean slate, so what the criminals are doing is getting a nice clean ID with no records and they can then build up a “nice” personal record against their personality as it were.”
Loxton says the consequences of identity theft which can include stalking by sexual predators, reputational damage and becoming implicated in crime could be “devastating”.
“Whilst social media is a great medium to connect with their friends, it’s also a great medium for the crooks to access personal information and they must be concerned about issues like cyberbullying and ID theft. They must understand what the consequences can be.”
Loxton says identity fraud is prevalent in South African due to a lack of resources to stamp out the scourge while at the same time people tend to be negligent in protecting their ID’s by allowing potential criminals in a public space to see what they are doing on their laptops and smartphones.
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