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Studies done by the Federal Trade Commission have shown identity theft against children to be the fastest growing sector reporting complaints of identity theft. In many cases the children can’t even trust their parents to protect them because sadly family members commit the majority of child identity thefts.

The government needs to step in and take measures to protect children from greedy or misled relatives. In addition, corporations who have taken steps to be more forgiving to adult victims of identity theft have to become more understanding when dealing with complaints of child identity theft.

Fastest Growing Segment Of Complaints Of Identity Theft

In just two years time, the The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) discovered that the incident of complaints of child identity theft rose from 2% of the total reports to 4%. This is the fastest growing category of identity theft complaints, and is projected to continue in this trend. Many of these crimes were committed years before, and are only noticed as individuals become more aware and begin to look deeper into their children’s credit reports.

The FTC believes that not enough of these crimes are being noticed in adequate time. The FTC estimates that a half of a million children fall victim to identity theft each year, however only about ten- or fifteen thousand are reported annually. Often times the lack of incident reporting is because the people who are responsible to protect the child from such theft are the one’s stealing their identity.

Majority Of Child Identity Thefts Committed By Family Members

More that 50% of complaints of identity theft against a child leads back to the parents or other close family members. Usually the identity was stolen in times of extreme need, either to avoid losing utilities or to keep a working vehicle.

A ruined credit report can be debilitating for a child five or ten years down the road, but parents typically the parents justify their criminal behavior by claiming it was for the best of the child at the time. It is not usually the intention of the parent to permanently damage their child’s credit history.