Identity Theft Shifts to Kids Under 18

“Axton Betz had just rented her first off-campus apartment in West Lafayette, Ind. when the power company told her she needed to pay a $100 deposit to turn on the electricity. Betz, who was 19 at the time, assumed they required the large deposit because she had no credit history. But, for safe measure, she requested a copy of her credit report. “I thought it would be just one page on student loans,” Betz says. Instead, she found 10 pages of defaulted credit cards – showing someone had been using her identity since she was 11 years old.

Stealing social security numbers to buy cars, apply for credit and obtain driver’s licenses has now shifted to a new demographic: those under the age of 18. Credit companies and other firms are responding offering monthly services promising identity-theft protection for children. According to the Federal Trade Commission, there is a market for this:  19,000 child identity theft complaints were reported in 2009, the most recent data available, up 217 percent since 2003. What’s more, a study done by the Carnegie Mellon CyLab showed children are 51 times more likely to have their identity stolen than adults. And while most of these stolen IDs are used by undocumented immigrants or organized crime rings, there’s also the chance a child’s own parents could use their kid’s digits, says Bo Holland, CEO of AllClear ID, an identity protection company.

Prompted by those numbers, on Monday Equifax launched a family plan that keeps tabs on the identities of two adults and up to four children. The service, which costs $29.95 a month, alerts parents by e-mail or text message whenever someone tries to use any of the family’s IDs. It also scans the Internet for personal information found on websites and monitors the adults’ files from the three credit bureaus. Earlier this month, AllClear ID debuted a free ID theft mobile app for the iPhone and iPad that lets a parent make sure her child’s identity hasn’t been compromised. (There’s also an option for daily monitoring, which costs $14.95 a month.) And AllClear formed a partnership with the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance to let consumers see the reports of stolen data that, before now, were only shared with companies….”

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