Identity theft is a form of stealing someone's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name. The victim of identity theft (here meaning the person whose identity has been assumed by the identity thief) can suffer adverse consequences if they are held accountable for the perpetrator's actions. Identity theft occurs when someone uses your personally identifying information, like your name, Social Security number, or credit card number, without your permission, to commit fraud or other crimes.
Example of identity theft cases are as follows:
Defendant Sentenced for Identity Theft Tax Refund Fraud
On November 19, 2012, in Miami, Fla., Louis Gachelin, of Miami, was sentenced to 28 months in prison and two years of supervised release. Gachelin pleaded guilty on July 13, 2012, to one count of theft of government money and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to court documents and statements made in court, in March and April 2012, Gachelin cashed and attempted to cash 29 fraudulently obtained income tax refund checks totaling approximately $100,000.
Indiana Woman Sentenced for Filing False Claims for Refunds
On October 31, 2012, in Indianapolis, Ind., Lowkeysha Lipscomb was sentenced to 41 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $42,067 in restitution. According to court documents, Lipscomb filed false claims for refunds using the Social Security Numbers of other individuals both living and deceased. Lipscomb and another co-defendant would prepare fraudulent Forms W-2 and used this information to file false tax returns. The tax refunds were deposited in bank accounts and loadable debit card accounts controlled by the defendants.
The term 'digital divide' is where
some people have the access and the capability to modern information technology
such as telephone, televison or Internet while others do not. It shows the gap
between those two groups. The two types of divisions are global divide and
social divide.
For global divide, the focus is set
on global disparities between developed and developing countries in terms of
accessing the modern information technology. In global divide, the access of
this modern information technology is higher in wealthy countries such as
United States where they have enough money to provide or to buy those modern IT
things. The access is also higher in where the IT infrastructure is good as
this make it easier for them to be able to use and access. Besides that, the
access is higher where the literacy is higher and in English-speaking countries
because many of this technology operated in English, whether the manual
instructions, the communication through it and the command used. The access is
also higher where it is culturally valued.
As for the social divide, the access
is higher for young people and well-educated people as these two groups eager
to learn new thing and able to adapt to this modern information technology
easily. The well-educated people exposed to this technology in their daily life
especially in working environment.
