One in five Australians have been victims of identity-related crime and 1.5 million people have had their credit cards illegally copied in the past year.
And so far this year, 188 Australian ATMs have been "compromised" by ATM skimming bandits who used devices to steal customer's PIN details.
Queensland Police have today hosted a National Identity Crime Symposium on the Gold Coast with police, academics and international guests discussing ways to combat identity-related fraud.
Professor Jonathan Rusch, of the United States Department of Justice, told the conference identity fraud was one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.
He said more than 1.2 million Australians have had their bank account details illegally accessed and almost the same number of people had had their personal mail stolen in the past year.
One fifth of the Australian population had been victims of identity fraud and 1.5 million people had their credit cards compromised in the past year, he said.
Professor Rusch said in the United Kingdom, one in six people were victims of identify fraud in 2007 and in the first half of 2009, identity fraud had risen by 74 per cent.
"Card not present" fraud, which included phone and internet purchases, amounted to £328 million last year, he said.
He said the digital age meant people’s personal information was travelling "in nano-seconds through the internet."
"Information flows faster than the ability to control that flow, in some cases the consequences can be catastrophic," he said.
The speed of criminal activity was also fast, he said, with 71 per cent of frauds associated with identity crime occurring in less than one week from the time the data was first stolen.
"Fraudsters are getting more sophisticated and using more attacks of opportunity whereever they can find data exposed," he said.
A recent research into convicted identity thieves found many did not understand the harm they caused their victims.
Professor Rusch said offenders saw it as an "easy, rewarding and relatively risk-free way for them to fund their personal lifestyles."
They also believed it was big corporations and credit card companies which suffered the loss, not individual victims, he said.
Professor Rusch said a particular problem for Australia was ATM skimming, with 188 ATMs in the past year compromised by criminals using skimming devices which can be used to detect ATM users’ PINs.
"Without realising as soon as you dip in your card and enter your PIN, you’ve unwittingly transmitted your information directly to the criminals who are monitoring that ATM," he said.
"They can move very quickly to counterfeit cards and run to other ATMs and start draining money out of your bank account at great speed."
The symposium will continue until Wednesday and include several guest speakers, including academics and private sector experts on identity-related fraud.
Source:- Brisbane Times
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