Stress & Fatigue Among Non-Financial Effects of ID Theft

Increased stress levels and fatigue are some primary consequences experienced by victims according San Diego-based Identity Theft Resource Center study that looks beyond the financial implications caused by ID theft.

The Aftermath: The Non-Economic Impacts of Identity Theft, explores the emotional, physical and psychological impacts experienced by victims of identity crime.

The survey, distributed to victims who contacted the ITRC for assistance in 2017, revealed that many of the respondents experienced negative emotional impacts that resulted in real physical consequences. As an example, of the individuals that responded, 77.3% reported increased stress levels and 54.5% had increased fatigue or decreased energy.

Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center said. “Year after year, The Aftermath® survey continues to show that the effects of identity theft are far-reaching.” She noted the effects to victims’ general emotional and physical well-being, their relationships with others and even how they engage within their work or school environments. She suggested, “As we work with industry and other stakeholders, it’s crucial to continue to share the emotional, physical and socio-economic impact findings with them so they better understand the totality of the ramifications of this crime, as well as providing encouragement for them to elicit change within their organizations.”

Additional findings include:

• Due to their identity theft incident, nearly 46% of those surveyed said they felt like they couldn’t trust family while 55% stated they had trust issues with friends.
• Respondents admitted the identity theft incident caused problems at their place of employment (32%) and at school (8%).

The ITRC released the preliminary findings of the full report, which will be available in Spring 2019, as part of a recent Washington, D.C. workshop in which attendees learned from industry experts as well as from victims themselves about identity crime experiences.

In a separate announcement, the ITRC released their breach statistics through Sept. 30. So far in 2018 there have been 932 breaches affecting 47,231,256 records. Totals by category: Banking/Credit/Financial=106 breaches (11.4 % of total breaches), 1,707,223 records (3.6% of total records); Business=432 breaches (46.4%);  22,164,590, (46.9%); Educational=62 breaches (6.7%): 832,115 records (1.8%); Government/Military=73 breaches, (7.8%), 16,766,327 records (35.5%); Medical/Healthcare=259 breaches (27.8 %), 5,761,001 (12.2%).