Identity protection scans of more than 40,000 children in the United States show that 10.2% of those children had someone else using their Social Security number. That is 51 times higher than the .2% rate for adults, according to a report released by the Carnegie Mellon CyLab.
Children’s unused Social Security numbers are valuable to thieves because they can be paired with any name or birth date. Additionally, the chances that the ID theft will be discovered are low because the numbers won’t be used for a long period of time and parents generally don’t monitor the security of their children’s identities.
The report claims that the primary drivers for such attacks are illegal immigration, organized crime and friends and family trying to circumvent bad credit ratings.
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