Home Affairs to probe ID theft in the Cape

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An Eastern Cape teenager who has been waiting for an identity document for two years has been shocked to discover that four people were using her ID number.

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Fingerprint biometrics: the only solution for a secure banking environment

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Ideally, a bank operating in any country should verify the true identity of a potential client through direct verification against the population register (PR).Nevertheless, it is anticipated that banks would insist on controlling their own identification systems because a national system would have the capacity to also handle banking-related transactions in realtime. Consequently, the banking sector would require the implementation of its own automated fingerprint identification system solution (AFIS). Without verification against the PR, this solution would not necessarily allow the bank to establish a client's true identity, but it will allow the bank to determine if a particular client has been registered before, possibly under a different name, allowing immediate detection if this person attempts to open another bank account. Should all the banks then agree to exchange information and use a central AFIS, fraudulent acts become even more difficult, if not impossible, to commit.

ID theft at Absa is a first in SA crime logs

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Edward West July 22 2003 at 07:58AM
Cape Town - The theft of the identities of three Absa customers to access their Internet banking accounts appeared to be the first crimes of this kind in this country, but a recent survey in the United States has claimed that seven million American adults have been victims of identity theft over the past year.Richard Peasey, Absa group information security officer, said it was too early to say the crime had been nipped in the bud and it was unlikely all banks and institutions would admit to being affected by this kind of fraud.Nevertheless, Absa and the rest of the banking industry were working together to combat this new crime. Absa's own internet banking security had not been breached.

Absa's share price dipped 20c to R35,80 on Monday, but it sank as low as R35,40 in early trade on Tuesday morning in reaction to news that three Absa clients had money removed from their accounts after a fraudster managed to gain unauthorised access to their computers and load software, called key-stroke logging software, which automatically copied everything they typed on their computers and sent it back to the fraudster without their knowledge. A further six cases were under investigation.An analyst said bank shares were generally lower on Monday on profit taking, as the sector had risen relatively strongly in the past few weeks.Roland Le Sueur, Internet banking head at First National Bank (FNB), said security on FNB's Internet banking system had not been compromised.Apart from security awareness programmes, FNB notified clients by SMS every time a banking transaction took place, a unique procedure in the local market which greatly added to security for the client.A statement from Standard Bank said: "To our knowledge, we have not had an event similar to the Absa incident." The bank stressed that clients should always protect their personal identification numbers (PINs) and passwords.Gartner Research, the world's biggest technology research house, said a survey in May showed that about 3,4 percent of all US consumers, or seven million adults, had been victimised by identity theft last year. Only 5 807 arrests were made by the FBI, the US Secret Service and the US Postal Service in 2000, the last year of available data."Even if it assumed that arrests doubled, which is highly unlikely, the criminal still has a one in 700 chance of getting caught by federal authorities," the research note said.Research in the US showed that more than half of all identity theft were committed by criminals who had established relationships with their victims, such as family members, roommates, neighbours or co-workers.

Giving ID theft the finger

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ID fraudsters bank billions

Identity theft world's fastest growing criminal activity according to

Mark Carrels
Fraudsters using stolen or copied identity documents are stealing millions of rands from unsuspecting South Africans in what is becoming one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world.
Since April last year, identity fraudsters have stolen more than R83 million from banks alone, while experts say identity theft worldwide already amounts to billions of dollars.
Head of forensics at First National Bank in Johannesburg, Eddie Blight, said identity fraud or impersonation theft was the fastest growing fraudulent activity in the world.

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Nearly 1 000 ID books stolen

Bushbuckridge - Nearly 1 000 identity books have been reported stolen from the Department of Home Affairs' Mhala office in Bushbuckridge.
The 987 ID books were stolen on December 6 when thieves broke into the building through a window.
"The thieves broke the padlock on a cabinet in which 987 new ID books were stored," said Mhala head of detectives, Superintendent Alfred Dlamini.
He said police had opened a case of burglary and were warning members of the public not to be tempted into buying the stolen IDs on the black market.
"We are warning the community not to buy those IDs, but to report the suspects to the police," he said.
Goodwill Mabasa is one person whose ID book was stolen.
"What am I going to do now? I just found a new job and the company wants a copy of my ID book," he said.
A 27-year-old security guard told police that she didn't hear or see anything that night as it had been raining heavily.
Acting manager at the Mhala Home Affairs office, Buttlers Mhlaba, said he could not comment as he was on leave.
- African Eye