4.2 International Arena

In the international level , identity theft runs rampant and has even serious cases as compared to local cases . It was said that in year 2008 , almost 10 million Americans were victims of identity theft . Identity theft occurs in different forms in other countries . In a recent article reported in the ABC news website , it was reported that a deceased person can be a victim of identity theft as well ! It is further reported that every year 2.5 million identities of Americans which has already passed on was misused . ID Analytics , an ID theft risk assessment company says that these thieves intentionally steal identities of about 800,000 deceased Americans each year and they also make up Social Security numbers and inadvertently make matches with about 1.6 million people a year who have died . These identity thieves also steal financial information from people who are dying . This is done easily due to the fact that those who are on the verge of dying are not able to keep track of their financial status . This report is highly disturbing , as even identities of those who are dead or dying are not spared from identity theft .

Another case of identity theft is seen in New Zealand which was reported recently . On March 22nd 2012 , the nzherald writes in its website that a 82 year - old was sentenced at the Auckland District Court to three years and two months of prison . While this case may seem like your regular case of identity theft , the disturbing thing is that Colin Diedrichs , the identity thief , used the identities of dead children to apply for government benefits . It is further written that he had amassed $447,000 over 22 years by getting superannuation benefits in the names of the deceased children . Diedrichs stated in court that he took details of a two year - old boy who had died in 1935 as one of his targets for the theft . From the news we can see that identity theft is unethical as even those who has passed on is not spared from this criminal activity .

In the international arena , there are several different laws that is made to combat identity theft . In Austalia , some states have amended relevant criminal laws to reflect crimes on identity theft , such as the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA), Crimes Amendment (Fraud, Identity and Forgery Offences) Act 2009 and many others . In the philippines , they have a law on cyber crime called the Cybercrim Prevention Act 2010 . Inside the act . section 2 states that violators of the law will be punished by the law through imprisonment or given a fine . The act recognizes the importance of communication and multimedia for the development and dissemination of information .

In the United Kingdom , authorities combat identity theft with the help of the Data Protection Act 1998 . The act covers all personal data which an organization may hold such as names , date of birth , addresses , telephone number and etc . While in America , their side have drafted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act . The act provides the Federal Trade Commission with authority to track the numbers of incidents and the dollar value of losses . The statute also makes the possession of any "means of identification" to knowingly transfer , possesses , or use without lawful authority " a federal crime .

Stating down all these laws from different countries , we can see that in the international stage , laws on identity theft is strict and Malaysia should take a look into these laws to further strengthen the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 .