The related topics of ID theft and ID fraud have been pretty high-profile ones recently, and there's now a call from the UK All-Party (parliamentary) Group on Identity Fraud for the appointment of someone to oversee and co-ordinate the anti-fraud activities of policy-makers, law enforcement and the commercial sector.
The answer to the question is, of course "it depends". Among other things, it depends on what that person's remit would be, and what resources they would have to enact such policies as they defined. I can think of a several things which they might be tempted to address, with varying probabilities of success.
For instance, they might choose to have a go at public awareness and identity-related behaviours. Apparently 'one in six 16 to 25 year olds publishes information about themselves on the web which could be used to carry out identity fraud'. My favourite recent quote in this area comes from Tom Ilube of Garlik: "50% of people say they are concerned [about privacy], but only 6% do anything about it. They care about it in the same way as they care about losing weight."
There's a lot behind that rather sassy epigram. For instance, how much of that apparent lack of urgency is because the web has few ways of making us feel unsafe. It appears to be much safer to walk down the online equivalent of a dark alley than it ever would in the real world... so lots of people wander through the seedy web neighborhoods, (metaphorically) waving their wallets above their heads as they squint through the viewfinder of their expensive camcorder.
Both those problems require the mass mobilisation of communities (the general public, the web designers) over whom an ID Fraud Tsar could expect to have only limited influence.
How about law enforcement, then? Surely there's scope here for a Tsar to carry out a few purges? Well, probably not. Bear in mind that ID theft and ID fraud are fundamentally borderless crimes. The credit card details which are 'lifted' in Canada might be aggregated in the Far East, written onto plastic cards in South Asia, shipped to Europe, and then used to buy things online from Japan for shipment to Africa. If you can find a law enforcement agency which would be interested in following that chain for any more than one hop, I'd be surprised...
My favourite quotation in this area is from author Jeffrey Robinson:
"As long as we persist with a C17th idea of the nation-state, a C18th judiciary and C19th law enforcement, the C21st will belong to organised crime".
If a Tsar is appointed, they should have that on a little plaque on their desk.
![[RSS Newsfeed]](/themes/sotto/images/valid-rss.png)
![[This is a Roller site]](/themes/sotto/images/roller-logo.gif){kind=logo}
Seems like yet another waste of public money to me. Perhaps they can persuade Darling to take the post before he gets a chance to ruin our economy (pleease).
I've just got my new 'PINSentry' logon thingumy from Barclays Bank to improve security. Its simple to use (even my Mum could use it), and all the banks are going this way to improve security (reduce their losses).
It is a pain to have to take yet another device with me on my travels though - I now have to have/use it if I want to check my online balance though.
Posted by Trefor on October 06, 2007 at 02:19 PM GMT+00:00 #