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== IDENTITY THEFT == by Manish Kenia.

Have you ever imagined, How the Banks get your Mobile No. for selling their products like Credit Cards, Personal Loans, Car Loans, etc. or the other Cell network providers get your Mobile Nos.? Well, the Identity Theft is rampant in India. We Indians are very lax while divulging our personal information to others. In return of some small gifts or some penny benefits we readily agree to give our personal information to almost anybody. IDENTITY THEFT means someone uses your identity to create credit. The imposter can use your name, driving license, credit card no. and other personal information for their own financial gains. In India and that too particularly in Mumbai we are identified by our Ration Cards. It is a very important document in our life. Anything from School admission to Driving License to Passport, etc. we require Ration Card. Many of us know that how difficult is to get the Ration Card and if you have right kind of connection then one can get the Ration Card very easily. Once you get the much coveted Ration Card then you can open a Bank Account, get driving license, passport, Income Tax PAN card, etc. that means you can create all sort of official documents verifying your identity. In the same way if a person wants a Ration Card he can manage to get it in whatever name he wants it. The procedure to issue the same is very lax and no investigation or verification is done in respect of the applicant. No doubt the procedure of personal visits for verification is very much laid down but it is seldom followed. Once you have it you can create all kinds of documents to identify yourself. In US as per one study Three Identity theft is taking place every minute. So the figure is alarming. We wake up to our Identity theft only when our Identity is used in some criminal activities. After the commission of some crime it is very difficult to convince the authorities that the offence committed by the person is not you but by a person who has stolen your Identity and the offence is committed by him in your name or using your identity People who commit Identity Theft can use the identification to commit bank fraud, credit card fraud and many forms of theft. The implications of the Identity theft are very harsh it can devastate your financial health. One can book airlines or railway tickets or make online purchases using your credit card details and make financial gains, you will come to know only after when you receive your credit card statement. In India normally we do not report this kind of frauds because of our “Chalta Hai” attitude. At the most we will dispute the credit card statement and close our credit card account. Many of the people are not aware that we can report such type of crimes to our Cyber Police and those few know it they are unaware of the location or the procedure to report this type of crime. Even banks also do not inform this type of crime to the police for the fear of loss of reputation in this highly competitive segment of credit cards. Repairing the damage done by the fraudulent credit card transactions can take quite some time may be years. The credit agency like The Credit Information Bureau India Ltd. Will list your name in the defaulter’s list and in future if you apply for any credit card or loan then it will be difficult to get one. Issues such as Identity Theft is overlooked in Information Technology Act,2000 and any person committing such crime can be prosecuted under Indian Penal Code for the offence of impersonation.

With the advent of internet revolution in India and relatively easy to get Credit Card and Mobile connection the risk of Identity theft is more. Many in India do not use the necessary virus protection tools for accessing the internet which can give rise to all sort of adware, spyware, maleware,etc. to easily penetrate one’s computer system and monitor the surfing patterns of an individual. We always take proud in using pirated software and operating systems for not paying their hefty license fees. But we always forget that by using such software we are deprived of the latest updates and security patches released by the software companies which in turn makes our computer system vulnerable to all types of spywares released by the hackers who can monitor our surfing patterns and can penetrate our computer system and can get our personal information stored on our computer’s hard disk. Obtaining personal information of an individual can be from various sources. Personal details from the forms submitted to the various educational or other institutions. Banks, application forms submitted for IPO’s or Mutual funds, Insurance Policy application forms, etc. which are kept or stored after the initial processing either in a godown or in files mostly not properly guarded. Several crimes such as financial crimes, telemarketing and Internet Scams, Theft of Car or Two wheelers, Burglary, forgery, Trafficking in Human beings are related to the Identity theft. Depending on the type of crime a person wants to commit one can operate in his Individual capacity or in a group in organized manner. Individuals are mostly in financial crimes through Identity Thefts and Terrorism is the most recently cited instance of organized group’s stealing identities to conceal illegal activities. In 11th September 2000 attacks on US most of the offenders used stolen identities and with the result arrest of the people whose identities were stolen. Identity theft is a very complex crime and composed of many small or sub-crimes and related to many other problems. Thus Identity Theft crimes fall under the authority of various agencies including local police, CBI, RAW, Financial agencies, RBI, Local Government Bodies, RTO, State and Central Government, etc. We require greater expertise to combat such type of crime and for the same all the agencies involved has to work in tandem.