When Did Identity Theft Originate?

Identity theft is a huge problem in our modern world. This criminal activity not only hurts the organizations that are never paid, but also the individuals that have had their identities stolen. It also harms the general public because we are forced to pay the extra fees and higher interest rates companies must charge to make up for the money lost through these crimes. Although the origin of identity theft may seem difficult to pinpoint, it is really simply a part of a crime that has been a part of human history since prehistory. That crime is of course thievery.

Is Identity Theft Creative or Just Stealing?

At it’s simplest, identity theft is just a form of stealing. It can actually be traced back before the internet. A recent movie called “Catch Me If You Can” portrays the life of a conman. He lived his life as someone else of various professions often carrying out check fraud.

In this movie you can see simple identity theft. This has eventually turned into a modern day form of identity theft. People have just simply become better at it using the modern day conveniences of the internet and e-mail to not only to take on someone else’s profession but now also become that person.

One of these ways this is done is by e-mail. An e-mail containing a virus can be sent to you to gather your personal information from your computer. The best way to stop this is by not opening e-mails if you don’t recognize the sender. You need to read the information provided in the subject line and who has sent it to you.

In many cases these will be misspelled or obvious spam. Never open these spam emails. Keep your computers anti-virus program updated and running in the background at all times.

Identity thieves can also do something as easy as checking the garbage that you throw out. It’s important to never throw out papers that have information on it such as social security numbers, birth dates, account numbers or any other information that pertains to identity.

It doesn’t really matter when identity theft originated. What is most important is that as individuals, we are careful with our personal information to protect ourselves against this offense.