Understanding Victim-enabled Identity Theft: Perpetrator and Victim Perspectives

Victim-enabled identity theft is a crime in which an individual victim is deceived into providing their personally identifying information (PII) to a criminal to facilitate its theft and/or misuse. In this paper we analyze a particular victim-enabled tax-related identity theft scheme recently reported in Australia, which has also been reported, in a slightly different guise, in the US. We find that this scheme, and others like it, are best understood when studied from both the perpetrator’s and the victim’s points of view. The criminal perspective and business practices have been captured and analyzed in the Identity Threat Assessment and Prediction (ITAP) model developed by the Center for Identity at The University of Texas (UT CID). The victim perspective has been captured from multiple victim case files captured by IDCARE. The research findings support the view that combining perspectives enhances the analytical value of a threat assessment and prediction model. The multi-actor nature of victim-enabled identity theft complements the methodological approach adopted in the paper, and provides new insights on a growing form of identity theft that can inform future prevention and detection response strategies