For the ninth year in a row, identity theft is the top consumer complaint as reported to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.  I bet next year will be the tenth.

I first got involved in the battle against identity theft in 1998 when I testified in July of that year before the United States House of Representatives about the growing threat of information brokers stealing and selling citizens’ financial information.  In 1999, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported for the first time that identity theft was the crime that Americans complained about the most as a consumer issue.  Since that year, identity theft has remained at the top of the list.

If anything, identity fraud and identity theft are now far more sophisticated crimes than they were back in the 90’s when the government first started to take note of the increasing levels of financial fraud associated with identity theft. 

There is no doubt that international organized crime is playing a significant role and even domestic cases are becoming more complex.  The days of merely stealing mail or dumpster diving for personal identifying information seem quaint at this point.  Today’s identity criminals are full-fledged participants in the world of cybercrime and utilize sophisticated hacking techniques to perform large scale data breaches.

The sad reality is there will be little relief from identity theft until there is a coordinated international effort backed up by laws that recognize this growing menace for the threat it is.  Until that day, we will continue to see identity theft continue as the top consumer complaint year after year.