Investigative Report Shows Ease of Identity Theft

A recent investigative report on Miami local WPLG, which is an ABC station, showed the ease with which criminals can steal individual's personal information from them without ever coming in contact with them. All it takes is for the thief to walk by with a Radio Frequency Reader (also known as a Remote Frequency Reader). These readers, for those not familiar, are available for less than $100.00 online. They information that these devices can skim is stored on many of our personal documents such as credit cards, drivers licenses, passports, university IDs, passports and corporate IDs. This information is held in RFID tags, which stands for Radio Frequency Identification tags.

Working in a team, the thieves can take your picture on a cell phone and skim your information in less than a minute and for all intents and purposes, they have enough to steal YOU, your identity, your credit, and your reputation. Getting back to that investigative report, here's how that worked. A reporter from WPLG was able to easily purchase a Remote Frequency Reader on the web and then use it in an experiment to see how effective the readers were at skimming information. She set the reader to beep whenever it was skimming information from people. Simply walking down the hallway by her co-workers or setting down her purse (where the reader was) on their desk, the device beeped regularly with each person.

Thieves, of course, will not be nearly so courteous as the reporter was. There will not be any audible beeping, you won't know until it's too late that someone else is in possession of your identity. It may not simply be individuals, either. Criminals have been known to be quite tricky about their placement of these devices, putting them on ATMs and store shelves, or even hidden in carpet. The amount of data that can be skimmed from places such as shopping malls, airports, grocery stores, sporting events and other large groups of people is astronomical. Data can also be scanned in from personnel badges and key cards. This leads us to another important and disturbing connotation- the amount of access that is had to classified information and facilities.

Identity theft is no less a crime, but the impact of someone gaining access into protecting computers and facilities is very different issue. Now that RFID tags are being put into more and more places- all new passports and quick-pay credit cards, for example, it's time to step up what we are doing to protect ourselves from these crimes.

With all the buzz about identity theft protection on the computer, many of us forget that the risk doesn't stop there. Everything from credit cards, university IDs, passports, drivers licences and corporate IDs contain Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Why does this matter? Well, criminals have learned that they can purchase devices known as Radio Frequency Readers or Remote Frequency Readers for less than $100.00. These devices can skim your personal info from you without your knowledge.

Denise Richardson is an author, freelance writer and advocate who educates the public on identity theft protection, identity theft prevention and id theft. She is a Board member of American Consumer Credit Education Support Services, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public on credit matters. She is founder of http://www.givemebackmycredit.com .

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