Released: November 28, 2007

FTC identity theft results disputed

Source: Jon Swartz and Byron Acohido, USA Today

dentity theft among Americans is down, according to a belated — and controversial — report issued by the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday.
The FTC says 8.3 million adults, or 3.7% of all Americans over the age of 18, were victims of identity theft in 2005. That’s far fewer people than the 10 million the FTC reported in 2003.

The results, released more than three years after the last FTC report, immediately drew skepticism from computer security experts, who say a surge in cybercrime is feeding an increase in identity-theft-related cases.

“The numbers are unreliable,” says Avivah Litan, an analyst at market researcher Gartner. Litan wrote a report, released this year, that showed an increase in identity-theft among American adults, to 15 million, in the 12-month period ended in August 2006. “The methodology is flawed. I think that’s why they delayed the report,” she says.