A research fellow at Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab is out with a new report today about child identity theft. The first large report about this ever. And the findings are pretty staggering. Children are 51 times more likely to suffer from identity theft than adults. Parents just aren’t focused on this issue.
The report shows stolen Social Security numbers for children as young as five months old are being used to secure employment, open credit card and bank accounts, purchase homes and automobiles and obtain driver’s licenses. As a result of this new cyber epidemic, children are discovering their credit and credibility are destroyed just as they enter adulthood. As a consequence, they are being denied internships, student loans, and apartments due to attacks on their identity that occurred years earlier. Experts predict the damage to children will get even worse with healthcare identity theft on the rise.
Starting today and for a limited time, one company – AllClearID – is offering free security scans so parents can find out if their children’s identities have been stolen.