New ID cards technology may increase identity theft

ID scheme proposed by the UK government will do little to stop identity theft and may actually exacerbate fraudulent behavior in its early years.

That is the view of researcher Dr Emily Finch who interviews career criminals about their activities.

She has detailed how they adapt their strategies to get around new anti-crime technologies such as chip and pin.

Dr Finch will tell a Dublin conference that these criminals will be undaunted by the prospect of identity cards.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) researcher, who is speaking this week at the British Association Science Festival in Dublin, says people have the mistaken belief that newer and better technologies are somehow infallible.

"What fraudsters know about is human nature. They know about people, they know how we operate, and they know how relationships of trust in which information is disclosed develop," she told the BBC News website, will do little to stop identity theft and may actually exacerbate fraudulent behavior in its early years.

Professional fraudsters did their research first: there would be no point in stealing a card from someone who didn't have much money. Fraud was an organized and professional career in which people advanced their skills.

"One of the things we found quite alarming was how much the human element has been taken out of point-of-sale transactions," Dr Finch said. "Point-of-sale staff are told to look away when people put their pin number in; so they don't check at all.

"As part of our research - my colleague is male - we have been using each other's cards to buy things. And not once in the whole period that we did this, did anybody say to me, 'This is a man's card, this isn't your card,'" reports Guardian.