80% of Americans Worried About Identity Theft

80% of Americans Worried About Identity Theft

May 1st, 2008

Bankrate’s recent poll about the consumer knowledge of identity theft indicates that 80% of Americans are worried about identity theft.

Gfk Roper America conducted a random survey of American households, compiling results from 1006 adults (524 women, 482 men). According to the survey, respondents who know someone who has been a victim of identity theft (34% of the respondents) are more likely to fear becoming victims of identity theft themselves.

Respondents who are concerned about identity theft are more likely to be taking steps to prevent it. These steps include shredding documents and monitoring credit reports.

Surprisingly, 35% of people who are concerned about identity theft have taken no steps to avoid identity theft. This number shows a great deal more avoidance of the issue than I expected. Indeed, for people not concerned about identity theft, only 19% haven’t made any changes to avoid identity theft. So, the data is indicating that although some people concerned with identity theft go above and beyond to protect themselves, in some cases the knowledge of identity theft leads to an increase in the "head in the sand" approach.

Participants’ Response to ID-Theft (Bankrate – GfK Roper survey - North America – April 2008)	Concerned About ID-Theft	Not Concerned About ID-Theft
More likely to shred documents with sensitive personal data	82%	52%
Use a secure snail-mail mail box (at post office or a locked box at home)	63%	51%
Avoid online banking	54%	55%
Check credit reports regularly	53%	30%
Refuse to shop online	42%	47%
Requested a Security Freeze on their credit reports	23%	6%
Only pay bills online	16%	13%
Haven’t made any changes to avoid identity theft	35%	19%

In terms of defining which avenue of identity theft most scares the respondents, information obtained over the web (45%) and information obtained from a business (25%) dominated the results. The data indicates a strong fear of e-commerce as leading to identity theft, which is largely unsupported by the data breaches happening today.

"Consumers tend to blame security breaches and incidents on the ‘Internet’ and they are more likely to change their online behavior than their behavior in the physical world as a result. This reaction is not based on the facts. The fact is that the large security breaches are happening at brick-and-mortar companies like TJX and Hannaford." – Avivah Litan, VP and Analyst, Gartner

Identity theft is misunderstood by consumers - both how it happens and what the consequences are. Much more consumer education is needed, in addition to safeguards that service providers can put in place to proactively protect consumers.

Via I’ve Been Mugged Tags: identity theft, id theft, id theft prevention, theft prevention, breach, security, online security, internet security, data security