Identity Theft Facts

In the UK alone identity theft fraud has been thought to cost the economy as much as £1.2 billion every year, which equates to a profit of £10 million a day for criminals. A large percentage of this, as much as £800 million, has been estimated by the Department of Work and Pensions as benefit fraud, and a staggering total of £536 million a year is thought to be lost to plastic card fraud.

There is a solid link between identity fraud and organized crime, and a wide range of very serious unlawful activities are based on stolen or faked identities including the following:
- Illegal Immigration
- Drug trafficking
- Money Laundering
- Property Theft (especially vehicles)
- Tax evasion (costs the government millions of pounds every year in uncollected taxes)
- International business fraud

Thieves can utilize almost every aspect of your personal identity, even just your name and address to carry out fraudulent activity, but the big prizes are key identity documents such as passports, drivers licenses and birth certificates. National Insurance Numbers are also big business and in 2008 it was estimated that there were over 76 million NI numbers in circulation, 15 million more than there were people legally residing in the UK.

A lot of identity theft occurs online as well, as this is an excellent way for thieves to get to a greater number of potential victims, and many people do not realize the dangers of using personal information online, making them more vulnerable to Internet fraudsters.