When baby-boomers were growing up, the only way to become a victim of identity theft was if a thief rooted through garbage for sensitive receipts. Now, millennials have more ways than they can count to inadvertently give away their digital identities.
However, research from CSIdentity suggests that millennials aren’t doing nearly enough to protect themselves.
Findings of CSID’s “ID Secured, Volume 1: Investigating Subscriber Profiles and Patterns” report indicate that, while 78 million Americans expressed concerns over the security of digital profiles, 40 million haven’t signed up for protection or resolutions services. In particular, millennials as a whole enrolled in identity theft services at a lower rate than the rest of the nation.
“The purpose of this ongoing study will be to better understand trends, habits, and high-level customer profiles of the ‘ID Secured’ population,” Joe Ross, president of CSID, said in a statement. “By understanding this population, we can help move the needle forward in identifying unprotected consumers and ultimately mitigate the risk and impact of the growing cases of identity theft around the world.”
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 17.6 million people were the victims of identity fraud in 2014, comprising about 7 percent of the population over 16 years of age. The attacks were varied, with 8.6 million affected by credit card theft, 8.1 million affected by unauthorized bank account access and 1.5 million other instances, including insurance fraud.
While millennials might not be crazy about identity fraud protection services, the CSID study found that residents of California and Texas were most likely to demonstrate an enthusiasm for financial protection services. The majority of ID Secured customers were also likely to be males between the ages of 52-55, according to the research data.
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