After my note about identity theft the other day, I got a nice note from Barry Marshall at Identity Intelligence (IDI), who run a database about fraud. Their numbers are staggering, and they define the issue today is not about Card Not Present (CNP) fraud, but Card Not Necessary (CNN).
They noted that over 61,000 stolen credit cards were being used fradulently on the internet during 2010, a decrease of 10% on 2009 (68,000)*.
However, the IDI database held 58 million records of individual personal data that were sold on the internet during 2007 and 2008.
By the beginning of December 2009 the figure had grown to 138 million related to over 60 million individuals, as many people are either phished or have their personal data sold and purchased more than once by criminals.
By December 2010 the database had grown to over 270 million records representing approximately 115 million individuals.
Should we be worried about the end of privacy?
Maybe groundwork for a CNN news report ...
* these stolen credit cards were reported to the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Credit Card Unit (DCPCU) a joint operation between the Metropolitan Police, City of London Police and UK Payments: http://www.dcpcu.org.uk/. In total, over 325,000 stolen credit cards have been reported by Identity Intelligence to the DCPCU.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
