The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) recently published a report on an identity theft survey it took during 2006 and 2007. The report estimated 11.7 million identity theft victims, which is 5% of all U.S. people over age 16 in the United States. The financial losses due to identity theft totaled more than $17 billion.
BJS defined “Identity theft” as the attempted or successful misuse of an existing account, such as debit or credit account, misuse of personal information to open a new account, or misuse of personal information for other fraudulent purposes, such as obtaining government benefits.
