Identity Theft Awareness among City Dwellers in Malaysia

Abstract

The Information Era brings with it a new breed of cyber criminals; the identity thieves. Worldwide, identity thieves are able to assume another person's identity to commit fraud or other crimes with the help of digital information technology. In Malaysia, identity theft cases are on the increase in tandem with police reports made on stolen personal documents such as identity cards, credit cards and pas sports. Most of the perpetrators are illegal immigrants from neighboring Asian countries. As such, Malaysian citizens should be informed of this crime as currently, lack of awareness and specific preventive actions are the reasons for the spread of this criminal activity. Thus, the objectives of this study were to assess the awareness of identity theft among city dwellers in Johor Bahru and Petaling Jaya as well as to determine the factors that can increase awareness of this crime. Forty questionnaires were administered to conveniently sampled respondents for this pilot study. The low mean score of 1.62 indicated that city dwellers are unaware of identity theft crimes and it is suggested that relevant parties and policy-makers highlight the seriousness of this crime.