ID theft fears overblown, study says

People whose personal information is compromised face less risk of becoming victims of ID theft than they think.

The story "ID theft fears overblown, study says" published December 7, 2005 at 5:45 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Mark Donovan]

Dubious objectivity of study results

This is a good summary article. However, it cannot be over-stressed who it is that performed this "overblown" study. The results are self-serviing to ID Analytics' business model and their assertion that "data breaches may not present a high degree of risk." On the other hand, they might... we're assured that only ID Analytics knows for sure.

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.idanalytics.com/solutions/breach_analysis.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.idanalytics.com/solutions/breach_analysis.html</a>

[Razzl]

We'll be the judge of that

It ticks me off that this company's subjective interpretation of their data is being headlined all over the news today, with the word "overblown" included in each instance. The consequences to each consumer from successful episodes of identity theft are serious enough that public concern is definitely, objectively, not "overblown". We will be the judge of whether we should worry about this and we will be the judge of how to interpret information about breaches of our data and we expect to be told. Most companies such as banks and credit cards which are careless with our data are also profligate with their snail-mail advertising budgets anyway, so business expenses of informing us is a red-herring sales point for these blockheads...

[bethkellyo]

id theft

I beleive not only are the numbers wrong, but innocent peoples lives have been tainted.