Nandini Arora, Christ (Deemed To Be University) Pune, Lavasa
ABSTRACT:
The modern era of the internet and new technologies has brought a significant influence on societies as well as on individuals. Through the internet, it has become very easy to transfer information like personal details to another person, but this sharing or transferring of information has become a threat to an individual as it causes what we call ‘Identity theft’. ‘Identity theft is a cybercrime that means using someone else’s details in an unauthorized way. It is a theft where the person fraudulent uses someone else’s personal information or identity to gain any type of benefit like monetary benefit in someone else’s name. Personal information includes the name of the birth, date of birth, email, medical insurance details, bank account details, etc. In today’s world, identity theft is the most common type of cybercrime because through this a person can easily access the bank account of the other person by mentioning his/her details. Nowadays any person who is using the internet, his/her identity can be easily stolen in seconds and the person whose identity is being stolen may not be aware of it as there are many technical ways in which the identity can be stolen. A person’s identity can be stolen whether he is alive or not then also it will be regarded as identity theft. Various tools are available on the internet through stealing other person’s information becomes easy. With the increase of the internet, there has also been an increase in cybercrimes especially those related to identity theft. Hacking someone’s laptop, mobile phone, or data theft, cookies, and SMS spoofing include identity theft. Now if we talk about cyberspace then, ‘Cyberspace is a virtual environment or platform where many people interact, communicate, and transfer various kinds of information including personal details through the internet. So, any information which is stolen on a virtual platform over the internet is known as ‘Identity theft in cyberspace.’ There is a relationship between identity theft and other cybercrimes as identity theft can lead to bank fraud, immigration offenses, etc. which also leads to offline crimes like robbery, theft, etc. According to the 2021 Norton Cyber Safety insights report, 36% of Indian adults detected unauthorized accounts and also the report shows that almost 60% of the population adults have a fear of their identity being stolen. It has been reported that during the pandemic time, identity theft has increased because during that time everything had become online, people were sharing through the internet, communicating through the internet, etc so for the hackers, it became easy to steal the data. Under the Indian Penal Code, of 1860, and the IT Act, of 2000, identity theft is considered a punishable offense. Sec 66C of the IT Act, 2000 mentions the fraudulent and dishonest use of identification features of any person. National Cyber Security Policy,2013 focuses on public key infrastructure and strict certification policy, and the creation of the national nodal agency.
Keywords: Cybercrime, Personal details, identity, unauthorized, Norton Cyber Safety, IT (Information Technology Act), National Cyber Security Policy, hackers.
Comments