Family Secure Child Identity Theft

When dealing with identity theft, it’s important to keep your entire family secure. Child identity theft, which is on the rise, is one area where you can help keep your family safe.

Stealing children’s identities is one of the fastest growing niches within the illegal industry of identity theft. In general, there are two ways that child identity theft is discovered. One form involves adults who find that at some point during their childhood, their identities were stolen. The other group includes children who have had their identities stolen and a relative discovers it.

Identity thieves have discovered that stealing the identities of children is much easier than taking on the identities of adults. Most of the time, the crime isn’t discovered until the child gets to an age where she or he can apply for a job, go to a university or apply for a line of credit. Secondarily, financial institutions really have no way of verifying the age of an applicant. Credit reporting agencies, even though they might suspect that an application is fraudulent, do not generally cross-reference a name with the Social Security Administration. In fact, when an initial credit application is filled out, the credit reporting agency accepts the age that is listed on the application and considers it verified until someone files a dispute and proves otherwise.

In order to keep your family secure, child identity theft must be prevented. In order to do so, use common sense when filling out applications for various things like childcare, school enrollment and recreational sports. If it is absolutely necessary to provide a Social Security number for these types of forms, be sure that the forms will either be destroyed after they are no longer needed or that they are placed within a secure location. Information supplied for hospital, dental and medical records will often include a Social Security number for your child, but these documents should also be kept in a secure environment. The key to preventing child identity theft is to ensure that any and all information about your child is protected.