News
Cyber-Security Awareness Month
10/15/09
Nearly 1.7 million Canadian consumers were victims of identity fraud in the past year, according to a new comprehensive national survey conducted by researchers at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University.
These victims spent more than 20 million hours and more than $150 million of their own money to resolve the fraud.
Susan Sproule, a research with the McMaster eBusiness Research Centre at DeGroote, found that in the past year 6.5 per cent of Canadian consumers – about 1.7 million people – experienced some kind of identity fraud, such as unauthorized credit card purchases or account access, having new accounts or loans taken out in their name, and being impersonated. Online transactions were the source for 15 per cent of identity theft cases. Debit card skimming made up another 13 per cent of cases.
While most respondents said they take steps to protect their personal information, the survey showed that Canadians are not going far enough to minimize the chance of identity fraud. Only 13 per cent of identity fraud cases were reported to the police. And nearly half of respondents – 49 per cent – had never requested a copy of their credit report.
Fully 20 per cent of survey participants report that they have stopped or reduced the amount of shopping they do online because of concerns about identity fraud, and nine per cent report that they have stopped or reduced online banking activities.