New FTC statistics affirm World Privacy Forum’s 2006 Medical Identity Theft report; give first robust medical identity theft statistics

Medical identity theft update — The Federal Trade Commission released its national ID theft survey, which for the first time contains statistics specific to medical identity theft. According to the FTC report (p. 21), 3 percent of all identity theft victims in 2005 were victims of medical identity theft, which means of 8.3 million ID theft victims, approximately 250,000 people were victimized by medical identity theft in that year alone. The purpose of the World Privacy Forum 2006 report was to prove that medical identity theft existed, and was already occurring in large numbers. At the time the report was published, the crime of medical identity theft had not been specifically studied, nor was it understood to exist. The FTC statistics abundantly affirm the thesis and conclusions of the WPF report.