IDENTITY THEFT – CYBER CRIME

Have you ever noticed the fact that in today’s digital

age, your personal information like name, date of
birth, address, phone number, email ID, etc are easily
accessible online and offline. And those information
can lead to the simplest form of theft. The evolution of
computer technology and increased human
interactions with computer has led to myriad offences
and illegal practices called cybercrime. And one such
crime is identity theft.
‘Identity Theft’ can be understood by understanding
the term identity. What constitutes identity? In general
parlance, identity of an individual is the collection of
unique and stable traits, characteristics associated with
that person which distinguishes him/her from others.
Each individual even two similar looking person have
different identity. In legal context, identity
encompasses the name, citizenship, address, physically
distinguishing feature, photograph, blood group
information. The government keep a track of the
people’s identity mainly because of the social security
reasons. Government stores those information and
maintain data online. Data is one of the most valuable
and vulnerable assets of this age. Stealing and
breaching of data is the most prevalent cybercrime.
When a fraudster get a chance to steal your data for
committing fraud to get economic gain . This is
identity theft.
Identity theft is a crime where a person fraudulently
obtains another person’s personal information and
uses it primarily for economic gain. It may be used to
facilitate or fund other crimes including illegal
immigration, terrorism, phishing, and espionage.
Technology has made the whole process easier. There
are many ways fraudster tries to procure or obtain
personal information from electronic devices and they
are as follows:
1.HACKING:- It is a technique through which the
hackers try to steal the personal information of the
victim and to make the illicit use of it without the
person’s consent. Intentionally, these attacks are done
to grab the information and use it themselves or sell it
to others to commit fraud. In legal context, Hacking to
computer is defined as the virtual trespassing by the
means of collecting personal information or data in
intrusive manner. It is one of the foremost means
facilitated by the individuals attempting to commit
identity theft.
2.THEFT:- There may be theft of your wallet or bag
containing bank credit cards, passports, other
identifying documents containing important personal
information.
3. PHISHING:- It is the most prevalent method to steal
personal identifying information. The fraudster send a
fraudulent email with a link to a fake website that is
exact a replica of the original bank sites which are so
designed to fool the users so that they reveal their
personal information.
4. VISHING:- Vishing uses VOIP (voice over internet
protocol) to commit the theft. The visher will make
cold calls/unsolicited calls to the victim posing him as
a representative of the victims bank, and talking from
some investigation team or importantly you-need-to-
listen-to-me type calls. Their main motive is to gain
victim’s financial and personal information.
5. NIGERIAN 419 SCAM:- Nigerian scam involve
someone overseas offering you a share in a large sum
of money or payment on the condition that you would
help them to transfer money out of their country.
While these scams originated in Nigeria and now
spread across the world. These scams are often known
as ‘ Nigerian 419’ scam because the first wave of them
came from Nigeria. The ‘419’ part of the name came
from section of Nigeria’s criminal code which outlaws
the practice.
6. SKIMMING:- Skimming is a process in which the
fraudster attaches a small skimmer gadget to an ATM
which records the personal sensitive financial
information via access to the person’s debit or credit
card including your PIN (personal identity number).
 WHY THEY STEAL ?

The information fraudulently obtained is then

used to steal the taxpayer’s identity and financial
assets. Typically, identity thieves use someone’s
personal data to steal financial accounts, use
victim’s credit card, apply for new loans, service
or benefit in victim’s name and even file
fraudulent tax returns.

 HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF :-

No doubt, protecting your identity is paramount,

with so many fraudster living next door. But
protecting yourself becomes much easy and
making sure that you won’t fall victim against
identity thieves , you must educate yourself on this
subject. Following are the few points you need to
keep in your mind :
i. Be sceptical of communication you receive from
sources you are not expecting. Verify the
authenticity of the phone calls, standard mails. Do
not respond to them.
ii. Do not reveal password, PINs or other security
based data to the third party.
iii. Do not click on the links in the questionable e-
mails, instead go directly to the site already known
to be genuine.

 IDENTITY THEFT IN INDIA

Identity theft has become epidemic in U.S and
other western countries while in India the cases of
identity theft is relatively low due to less number
of online transactions, and use of internet. In
India, there is no reliable statistics to know at
what extent identity theft is happening . But as far
as technology is concerned, it would be safe to
assume that there will be rapid escalation in
identity theft cases as India is moving towards
Digital India and e-commerce transactions
nowadays. Although the occurrence of
cybercrime, is burgeoning year after year, the
conviction rate in India is dismally low. As against
3682 complaints, 1600 out of the accused have
been arrested and merely 7 out of them were
convicted. This might be due to the improper
implementation of the existing rules or
insufficient, ineffective infrastructure required in
implementing the laws. These shortcomings can
be overcome by increasing the number of
vacancies for skilled police who are specialised in
technological advancement and more funds to
 update latest technology by the government which
will help to combat this evil cybercrime.
 BANK PHISING SCAM IN INDIA:-
Phishing as we know from the above explanation
is the most prevalent form of identity theft. In
recent cases of identity theft in India, a fake target
bank website was created and the bank customers
receive email asking them to renew certain service
claiming that failure to do so would result in
suspension or deletion of their accounts. Email
providing the link to the phishing site in an
attempt to make illegal or illicit use of individual’s
personal data.
DEFAMATION OR POSTING OF PORN OR
OBSCENCE MATERIAL ON SOCIAL NETWORKING
SITE:
Nowadays, a lot of cases has been reported in which
the victim’s personal profile is used in a fake and
vulgar manner to harass or humiliate them. These
profile contain pornography and obscene material
along with victims photograph, phone number,
address everything on social networking sites. This
also shows one of the bane and destruction done
using technology.
 THE LEGAL ANGLE OR PERSPECTIVE IN INDIA:
Though in India identity theft is not codified
standalone unlike U.S.A which passed the identity
theft and assumption deterrence act of 1998
which codified identity theft for the first time in
U.S.A .
Though the personal IT act 2000 does not
specifically deal with identity theft in any of its
provision. But the expert committee on
amendment of IT act 2000 has recommended
amending IPC ( Indian penal code).
Section 417A which punish cheating by using any
unique identification feature of any other person
with up to three years imprisonment and a fine
,and section 419A which punish cheating by
impersonating using a network or computer
resources with up to five years imprisonment and
fine.

There are few penal provisions which attracts

identity theft in IPC and IT act 2000 as follows:
1. Section 420 deals with cheating and
dishonestly inducing delivery of property. The
maximum punishment which can be awarded
is imprisonment up to 7 years and fine.
2. Section 66 IT act: any person who sends any
information that is grossly offensive or have
menacing character purposely send to cause
annoyance, danger, inconvenience, hatred
shall be punishable with imprisonment for a
term of three years and fine. This section
 provides punishment for sending offensive
messages through communication services.
 CONCLUSION :
The intensity of identity theft is immense and it
can have disastrous consequences. It can demolish
the image, reputation, credibility and health of the
victim. It possess the potential to destroy online
economy and deprive it of any faith and trust from
general public or users of internet.
Thus, identity theft is a serious crime that affects a
person personally. The younger generation who
are using internet extensively are more vulnerable
to these attacks as they are connected all the day
for work and entertainment purpose including
information, emails, social networking, e-banking,
e-shopping, web tv, news , education, home work
research, gaming, downloading. Therefore, the
users should be more vigilant and active to
combat these attacks.

SUBMITTED BY:
NAME: SAKSHI SINGH
CLASS: B.A.LL.B (1ST SEMESTER)
ROLL NO. : 51