Identity theft is a relatively new form of crime where certain personal information of an individual is stolen by another group. Here's an overview of the subject.

The very idea of identity theft is somewhat new. The phenomenon has grown out of the digitalization of our society. We want convenience and we want it now! How many of us barely carry any cash now because of our ATM debit cards? How many of us pay some or all of our bills online? The numbers are staggering.

With this convenience comes some risk. Those of a criminal nature have taken note of the possible value of using someone else's identity. In a "plastic world", one can use an identity for just about anything. Just as importantly to the criminal mind, people are more than willing to pay for a new identity as well.

So, what are the nuts and bolts of identity theft? At its core, identity theft occurs when someone gains access to your critical personal information. The information they need includes your legal name, current or recent address and social security number. If they can get other numbers such as your credit card or bank account numbers, all the better.

Once they have this information, there are a couple profitable directions they can go. They can order things online and keep them. They can run off a credit card [it is easy] and then spend their way across the country or locally. Alternatively, they can buy expensive products from local stores and then return them for the cash.

As you have probably noticed, illegal immigration is a hot button topic these days. Well, identity theft criminals are getting in on the act. Illegal immigrants need social security numbers to get a job in many areas. Guess who can give them the numbers in exchange for certain cash payments?

So, just how does a criminal go about committing widespread identity theft? They must be pretty smart, right? Some definitely are. In situations like the nightmare at the Monster job site, sophisticated worms and email techniques are used to trick people into coughing up their information.

More often than not, identity theft is made possible by a blunder. CALPERS, the state employee pension fund for California, is a classic example. The fund went to send out brochures to retirees notifying them of board elections and who was running. Oh, one problem. They printed the name, address and SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS on 445,000 brochures!

At the end of the day, convenience comes with a price. In our new virtual world, identity theft is it. We are at risk for complex schemes and human error. We just have to get used to it.

Aazdak Alisimio writes articles on identity theft for ArticlesonIdentityTheft.com.