A Social Security Administration website defines "identity theft" -- a term synonymous with identity fraud -- as occuring when "a criminal uses another person's personal information to take on that person's identity" (Social Security Administration, no date). Lest this be thought to apply only to Social Security numbers, the definition adds that "it can also include credit card and mail fraud."
A U.S. Department of Justice website expands on this definition, noting the circumstances that make identity fraud relatively simple:
Unlike your fingerprints, which are unique to you and cannot be given to someone else for their use, your personal data, especially your Social Security number, your bank account or credit card number, your telephone calling card number, and other valuable identifying data can be used, if they fall into the wrong hands, to personally profit at your expense (Department of Justice, no date).
Identity fraud may (and often does) involve a third-party victim, typically a business, in addition to the person whose personal identification is stolen and misused. Indeed, the person whose identification is misused may not be a direct victim of the resulting fraud -- though, as we shall see below, he or she usually becomes an indirect victim. If, for example, a person steals your credit card number to make a purchase on your account, you are a direct victim. If, however, a person uses your identifiers to open a credit-card account, you may not even become aware of it -- however, when the account goes delinquent, it will mar your credit rating.
Identity fraud, in a broad sense and in a rudimentary form, is as old as the crime of forgery. Traditional forgery might take a variety of forms, not all of which could be regarded as identity fraud. A forger who produces, say, a bogus letter by Abraham Lincoln and sells it as a real one is not committing identity fraud as such -- he is not claiming to b...