Date published: 2005/03/04
The BBC says:
A quarter of UK adults have had their identity stolen or know someone who has fallen victim to ID fraud, a Which? magazine survey has suggested.
Nevertheless, only one in three people said they shredded bills or used different passwords for every account.
ID thieves access accounts, run up bills, launder money, carry out benefit fraud and take out fraudulent loans.
ID fraud is one of the UK's fastest-growing crimes, with criminals netting an estimated £1.3bn last year.
The survey of 975 people found seven out of 10 favoured compulsory ID cards as a way to fight fraud.
This looks like the BBC has just regurgitated a press release from Which magazine. And not a very impressive press release. First of all the survey was (as usual) almost certainly not scientific (i.e. a random sample) so it is meaningless. Secondly it is a bit ridiculous to count people who are allegedly victims together with people who know someone who is allegedly a victim to arrive at the scary headline figure of one in four people. This would be like running a headline "95% of UK adults are homosexual, or know someone who is a homosexual". And the idea that compulsory ID cards would help fight ID fraud is dubious, it could end up being just another card with which to commit fraud.
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