Approximately 2.5 million deceased people have their identities stolen each year, according to one report.
This particular form of identity theft is referred to as ghosting. It may also consist of combining fraudulent data or information with the real data of the deceased; this is called synthetic identity theft.
Most grieving or bereaved families are not thinking about this possibility, and sometimes, it can make for a legal nightmare if the scammers can gain control of the deceased person’s estate.
However, in most cases, it is a relatively simple process for anyone seeking to use a dead person’s identity to get caught by authorities as long as government agencies have documentation of a person’s death.
“We believe there is a lack of data around identity theft victimization in Black communities that creates risk of becoming a victim. This is the first step in understanding identity issues in the different communities. This effort allows us to develop specific programs that will help victims recover and resolve identity crime,” Velasquez said.
According to Kim Allman, the head of Corporate Responsibility at Gen, the parent company of LifeLock, the study is part of a developing ecosystem of solutions for culturally competent victim services.
“Gen is proud to support the Identity Theft Resource Center and Black Researchers Collective in their efforts to understand how identity theft affects Black communities. We need identity theft and cybersecurity solutions that meet the needs of diverse communities in order to power Digital Freedom for everyone. This research effort will be critical to developing culturally competent victim services and we look forward to additional outcomes as the effort progresses over the next several years, Allman said.
Source: Black Enterprise
