Comedian Centered Narrative Cinema
Identity theft is the use of someone’s identity without their knowledge. It is usually aimed to gain money or to obtain other benefits meant for the victim, thereby making the victim suffer financial loss or loss of a specific benefit. An increase in identity theft forced the United States to increase the fines for identity theft. This move was meant to decrease the case of identity theft after the United States registered 7% of identity victims of total identity thefts globally in the years 2012 and 2012, with global identity victims adding up to 16 million and 17 million people, respectively. The United States increased the fines to $16 billion. This essay aims to explore identity issues as portrayed in the comedy Identity Thief.
Identity thief film is a comedy that stars Diana (Melissa McCarthy) and Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman). Diana is a Florida resident who lives a lavish lifestyle courtesy of identity stealing. Her life takes a different turn when she steals the identity of Sandy Patterson because he had a name that is mostly used by women. Sandy Patterson, who lives in Denver, has to go to Florida to track Diana to clear his name since he is given a one-week ultimatum before his world explodes. Sandy goes to Florida to persuade Diana to avail herself to Denver police so that he can not only clear his name but also restore his lousy credit rating. Identity thief portrays the American culture that is characterized by rampant identity theft. It shows the most common tactic that fraudsters regularly use to gain access to another person’s account. Diana uses the security question to bypass the set security features over Sandy Patterson’s account. When Sandy goes to Florida to look for Diana in an attempt to clear his name, Diana is very unapologetic and fights Sandy at first. Diana shows no remorse to Sandy even after telling her that he has two kids and a wife who is dependent on him. Their journey to Denver changes each one’s perception since Sandy decides not to report Diana to the authorities. However, Diana takes herself to the police (Dawn, no pg.)
Bankrate.com argues that 41 million Americans have had their identities stolen. Think tank Privacy and American business, on the other hand, claims the number is about 44 million. The firm further alleges that each year theft identity victims lose about 16 billion dollars. With an improvement in technology, hackers have found it easy to decrypt financial accounts belonging to reckless victims. Yahoo data breach led to the vulnerability of about five hundred million accounts. Another case is the attack on credit reporting agency Equifax which exposed data of one hundred and forty-three million Americans (Romain, no pg.). The dark web, bitcoin, and other massaging apps have been known to be the platforms for selling stolen data. Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) claims that identity is stolen every three seconds. This makes the crimes per year add up to more than fifteen million.
The rapidly growing identity thefts in America include credit card fraud, account takeovers, and opening fraudulent accounts. Despite measures having been put in place to ensure the security of the credit cards, credit card fraud has still increased, with a 40% increase being recorded between 2015 and 2016. The vulnerability of the credit cards was made possible because credit numbers can be used online without having physical cards. Account takeover is where the identity thief takes control of the victim’s account by changing the password and resetting all the information that can make the owner recover his or her account. Opening fraudulent accounts are when the identity thief uses the victim’s information to open an account by posing as the victim. The identity thieves who open fraudulent accounts can take loans in the name of the victim and can also use the victim’s medical information to get medication.
Fraudsters often use different tactics. They may install a camera at gas pumps, credit machines, or can use ATMs to grab the victim’s card and PIN. Blue tooth technology and cell phone sim cards are used to transmit stolen information to nearby computers. Fraudsters can also take someone’s information by sending a malware-infected email to the victim’s phone. They use data breaches to manipulate the victim into giving confidential information like the answer to the security question (Romain, no pg.). Once information is gathered, it can be sold to other interested parties. The fraudster can even file fraudulent tax returns to disguise the fraud. Victims may know they were scammed until they get a letter from the IRS or by looking at the financial statements.
Identity theft continues to pose problems to many people as criminals devise new tactics. Even though in 2018, there was a decline in crimes that resulted from identity theft, that number increased in 2019 with the criminal targeting on different financial accounts such as loyalty and reward programs and retirement accounts. With many businesses depending on electronic data and computer networks to perform daily operations, it makes personal and financial information more vulnerable since most of the information is stored online. These data breaches can make a company suffer huge liabilities if that data is hacked.
As a result of the increase in cybercrime, cyber insurance has been introduced to cover liabilities that may result from identity thefts of clients. Capital One Financial Corp suffered the worst data breach in 2019, which resulted in the exposure of one hundred million records. Another instance is when Adobe Creative Cloud breach led to the disclosure of seven million users.
The Department of Justice prosecutes the case of stolen identity. The law against identity theft was passed in 1998. This new law created a new crime of stolen identity. The law prohibits “Knowingly transferring or using, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit or to aid or abet, any lawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law.” This offense was designed to be punishable by a maximum sentence of up to 15 years in prison, fines, and forfeiture of any personal property used or that could be used to commit the crime. Violations to other statutes of identification were also included in the law, such as credit card fraud, computer fraud, mail fraud, financial institution fraud, and wire fraud. In 2004 there was the establishment of the Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act. This act set the penalties for identity theft. This act included penalties from immigration violations, theft on Social Security benefits, and acts of domestic terrorism (Sproule et al. pg. 57). Federal prosecutors are allowed to work with investigative agencies such as the United States Secret Service, United States Postal Inspection Service, and Federal Bureau of Investigation to prosecute suspects of identity theft.
Since the laws were established, there was no positive change in the battle against identity theft. Identity theft became more complicated to the people as they could not figure out how to protect their information. Reports of data breaches flooded the media while the victims watched helplessly since the perpetrators used means that could not be tracked. Private and public organizations, on the other hand, had a difficult task of ensuring the information about different customers was well protected. Identity theft has led to increased pressure among law enforcement agencies (Krishnan et al. no pg).
Most people believe that identity theft can only happen to those who use computers. However, this perception is wrong since identity thieves can acquire personal information by just stealing a person’s wallet. The information that is most sought by identity thieves include phone conversations, phone numbers, account numbers, credit card numbers, and addresses. While the internet has made it easier for hackers to obtain personal information belonging to different people, the solution to this challenge is yet to be realized. Moreover, the internet has made it easier for transactions about information about stolen identities. The use of the dark web has made it impossible to track the criminals behind crimes related to stolen identities.
Victims of identity theft are not just random. Identity thieves usually bounce on opportunities such as database vulnerability, a computer user clicking a malware loaded mail, or accidentally losing a wallet with personal contents. There is always a reason behind a specific victim; for instance, customers may be targeted because they have appealing demographics in a company’s database.
Avoiding identity theft requires one to follow different measures. Some of the steps include doing business with reputable organizations, using security features to one’s advantage, checking whether privacy policies are satisfactory, making sure personal information is not publicized, using up to date anti-virus software and a firewall at all times when doing transactions online, and continuously reviewing account statements (Archer, no pg.).
Before one provides confidential information such as personal and financial information, one should make sure that the organization is reputable. This is because some identity thieves develop malicious sites that look like they are legitimate to trick users into providing their personal information. The security feature is a vital data encryption feature that aids in protection. Choosing secure passwords can help in preventing personal identity thieves from guessing one’s password. Checking privacy policies is essential to understand how one’s information will be distributed. Many organizations permit the clients to request that their information not to be shared with other organizations. Posting data in different public platforms can assist identity thieves in piecing together personal information that can facilitate their operations. Using anti-virus software helps protect the computer from viruses and Trojan horses that can steal and modify data in a computer (Archer, no pg.). However, the ant-virus will be of no use if it is not up to date. Checking financial statements and credit reports can also help in determining a problem early in advance so that necessary precautions can be taken.
While a person’s identity can be stolen and he/she fails to notice, here are some of the changes that could help in indicating a person’s identity has been stolen, unexpected charges on bills, increased cost on phone calls, products and services, failing to receive regular statements, new accounts appearing in the credit report, and when the credit card fails to process cash.
Recovering from identity theft can be very challenging. One may experience a lot of stress. Some organizations to limit cases of identity theft have set a limit that can be withdrawn using credit cards. However, there are other measures to take when one realizes his/her identity has been stolen. One of the proposals includes visiting identityTheft.gov (Archer, no pg.). This site is meant to assist the person whose identity has been stolen to get justice and perhaps recover his/her money. One provides information such as sample letters, checklists, and other necessary resources. Other essential steps that need to be taken include filing a police report, contacting credit reporting agencies, and checking for any information that could be compromised.
Technology is a necessary evil. We cannot live without the internet despite the massive losses that result from it. Different measures have to be developed continuously since every time a proposal is put in place. A different tactic is devised. People, on the other hand, need to be very careful with their personal information. Just because your account has a password does not mean that it cannot be accessed. Necessary precautions need to be taken firmly to compart identity theft.
Works Cited
Archer, Norm. “Consumer identity theft prevention and identity fraud detection behaviors.” Journal of Financial Crime (2012).
Dawn, Randee. “Jason Bateman: ‘Identity Thief’ Melissa Mccarthy ‘Has A Lot Of Anger Issues.'” TODAY.Com, 2020, https://www.today.com/news/jason-bateman-identity-thief-melissa-mccarthy-has-lot-anger-issues-1B8192806
Krishnan, Ramesh, Robert Rainwater, and David FitzGerald. “Risk-based medical identity theft prevention.” U.S. Patent Application No. 15/651,577.
Romain, Martin, and Paul Bjerke. “Identity theft monitoring and prevention.” U.S. Patent Application No. 11/139,021.
Sproule, Susan, and Norm Archer. “Measuring identity theft and identity fraud.” International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics 5.1-2 (2010): 51-63.