— In 2006, there were 15 million victims of identity theft. Every two seconds, another person becomes a victim.*

— Households headed by persons age 18-24 and those in the highest income bracket ($75,000 or more) were the most likely to experience identity theft.*

— Three in 10 households experiencing any type of identity theft discovered it by missing money or noticing unfamiliar charges on an account; almost one in four were contacted by a credit bureau.*

— About two thirds of households experiencing identity theft reported some type of a monetary loss as a result of the theft.*

— Identity theft has now surpassed drug trafficking and sales to become the number one reported crime in the U.S., according to a 2006 study by Baylor University.

— Victims can spend up to 600 hours of lost work time recovering from an identity crime, adding up to as much as $16,000 in lost wages, according to a study by the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center.

— One third of the victims of identity theft had their personal information misused for credit card fraud in 2003, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Phone or utilities fraud was next at 21%; bank fraud (including fraud involving checking and savings accounts and electronic fund transfers) was at 17%; and employment-related fraud, at 11%.

— There are approximately 206 million adults in the U.S., as well as:
• 144 million credit card users in the U.S., or 70% of the U.S. adult population
• 1.3 billion credit cards in circulation as of the end of 2003, but those numbers are growing
• 154.5 million U.S. adults who are eligible for credit, or 75% of the U.S. adult population
• 82 million full-time workers in U.S., or 40% of the U.S. adult population

— 70% of U.S. adults use credit cards. That means they have credit histories which can be exploited by identity thieves. Anyone with decent credit can apply for more credit and easily obtain it; the applicants don’t even have to be fully employed; or, in the case of identity theft, don’t even have to be who they claim to be.

— More than 48 million identifying records have been stolen or lost since last year. Some of the bigger heists include:
• 40 million credit card numbers (Cardsystems—stolen from database)
• 3.9 million financial records (CitiFinancial—lost in transit)
• 150,000 individuals’ records (ChoicePoint—sold to a suspected criminal company)
• 310,000 individuals’ records (LexisNexis—stolen from database)
• 1.4 million credit card numbers (DSW Shoe Warehouse—stolen from database)
• 100,000 individuals’ records (UC Berkeley—stolen computer)
• 676,000 individuals’ financial records (Wachovia/Bank of America/ Commerce—stolen by employees)
• 1.2 million government worker records (Bank of America—lost backup tapes)
• 600,000 employee records (Time Warner—lost)
• 270,000 applicant records (USC—stolen from database)

This only represents the records stolen in bulk last year. This does not include any “dumpster diving,” “phishing,” “pharming, ” or “pretexting” done on an individual level. Because targets most often have no clue that they have become victimized, these crimes often go unreported.

*U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Stats