[Identity Theft]

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Acknowledgement

I would first like to express my gratitude for my research supervisor, colleagues, peers & family whose immense & constant support has been a source of continuous guidance & inspiration.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names & surname here], declare that the following dissertation/thesis & its entire content has been an individual, unaided effort & has not been submitted or published before. Furthermore, it reflects my opinion & take on the topic & is does not represent the opinion of the University.

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Abstract

This research aims at finding out the ways that how the criminals steal personal information of others & how they misuse that information to get benefits & give a great loss to organisations or companies or people or country & this research aims at providing various ways to be used as a precaution to be saved from the identity theft. It has been found out from the literature that how old is the identity theft & what ways were used in the past for such kind of thefts. A mixed research methodology has been chosen in order to analyse the past literature & learn from it as well as learn from the actual victims of identity theft & how it shaped their behaviour from the past experiences. It is concluded that there exist various methods for the thieves for stealing the identity information very easily like mails, computer servers & government records etc. It has been learned that we need to be precautious about how we could become the victims of identity theft. There are several proposed ways to avoid identity theft & how to react if someone's identity has been stolen.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

ABSTRACTIV

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the Research1

Problem Statement1

Rationale1

Aims & Objectives2

Significance3

Research Question/Hypothesis3

Ethical Concerns3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW6

What is Identity Theft?6

Fraud7

Ways of Identity Theft7

Cases8

Identity Theft9

Identity Theft: A 21st Century Version of Theft14

Why one cannot prevent identity theft18

How in the virtual world of identity theft19

How to use your personal identity thieves20

An excuse used by identity thieves to capture your information21

Identity theft in the real world22

Gold identity theft breeder documents23

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY24

Research Strategy24

Reliability and Validity25

Generalisability26

Time Scale27

Week First (13th September to 19th)28

Week Second (20th September to 26th)28

Week Third (27th September to 3rd October)29

Forth Week (4th October to 10th)29

Fifth Week (11th October to 17th)30

Sixth Week (18th October to 24th)30

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS31

Interview31

Limitations34

Delimitations35

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS36

Victims of Identity Theft36

Identity Theft in the Computer World37

Effects of Identity Theft39

Techniques to obtain personal information42

Individual Identity Protection43

Identity protection by Organizations44

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS46

Learning46

Recommendations48

How to avoid Identity Theft48

How to react if someone has stolen your Identity50

What is identity fraud?51

How fraudsters do they get the personal information of their victims? (Kocherlakota 2008 289)51

What could I do to protect myself?52

Directions for Future Research55

REFERENCES56

BIBLIOGRAPHY63

APPENDIX - A67

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background of the Research

Although identity theft is often heralded as a new crime threat, the phenomenon itself is by no means unique to the information age. All over the history, the criminals have been using the false identity for committing any sort of crimes & thefts. Identity theft has emerged as the fastest growing criminal ...