Identity theft is a crime that is real and around us. This crime is one of the fastest growing crimes over the last decade, because the crime is easy to do but very complicated in the solution. Moreover, the victims generally do not realize that they have become the real victims. Or even when they realized that they had become the victims, it is usually already very late. And all the efforts to restore the real identity will be getting very complicated and will need extra time and energy.
The danger of identity theft is not limited to financial losses but much more than that. It can also be very harmful to your medical records. When identity is stolen and used by someone who wants to perform medical check-up for free because the charge will be recorded to your credit or insurance, the medical records there are the medical records of the thief. When you are actually doing medical check-up, the data used would be wrong and very possibly endanger health.
Another example is you could be arrested because there are criminals using your identity. Then your name is recorded in police's crime records. Although after a long process and having asked a help to your lawyer, you eventually can prove your true identity and prove that you are not guilty, but this will not be easy and need a long process to change back all your data from scratch. Even the system may not be able to remove you from the criminal records that have been recorded.
What should be done to protect data from identity thieves is to be careful to keep all information private. Be extra careful for sensitive documents such as birth certificates, credit cards, passports, social security cards, etc. Or, to be more secure and easier to safeguard yourself from identity theft, you can sign up for ID Watchdog. ID Watchdog is a company to protect consumers from identity theft. ID Watchdog will examine all the changes of data concerning yourself doing cross-check to the thousands of databases that are available. So if there is a suspicious change of your data then there will be a cross check to make sure the truth of the data changes.
