Identity theft cases on the rise

Charu Singh (name changed), an aspiring airhostess, was aghast when her boyfriend broke up with her. What triggered the split was — someone hacked into her Facebook account and sent nasty messages about her. She filed a case at the Gurgaon Cyber Crime Cell and a subsequent probe proved that her roommate was the culprit. Leena Dhankhar reports

Charu Singh (name changed), an aspiring airhostess, was aghast when her boyfriend broke up with her. What triggered the split was — someone hacked into her Facebook account and sent nasty messages about her. She filed a case at the Gurgaon Cyber Crime Cell and a subsequent probe proved that her roommate was the culprit.

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According to police, this is not just a one-off case. There has been an alarming spurt in cases of identity theft — stealing someone's personal details in order to access resources or obtain credit or other benefits in that person's name or misuse the victim's details for nefarious purposes — in Gurgaon.

Till August this year, 70 identity theft cases have been registered with the city Cyber Crime Cell against 40 reported last year.

In most of the cases, conmen access accounts of individuals on various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Orkut and retrieve their photos and other information and use the same for making fake driving licences, applying for telephone connections, opening bank accounts and making PAN cards and credit cards.

In today's digital age, your personal information such as name, date of birth, address, phone number, email ID are easily accessible online and offline.

Such easily available information can be misused by conmen. With these bits information, a fraudster can procure a phone connection or a credit card pretending to be you. One does not get to know until one gets a statement from the service provider. But by then the damage would have been done.

Police admitted that in many cases victims do not come forward to file a case. In some cases, victims take back their complaints once they come to know that people close to them had committed the crime.

Inspector Suresh Singh, Cyber Crime Cell in-charge, said, "Victims often withdraw their complaints as most of the accused are known ones. Many students do not realise when they use webcams to interact with their friends who often record the videos."

Recently, a student had complained about her fake Facebook account complete with her personal details. Later, it was discovered the accused was her former boyfriend.

In August, Ekta Nath, (name changed) an engineering student, filed a case after her intimate video with her ex-boyfriend was launched on a porn site. Police later arrested her ex-boyfriend for the crime.

Vikas Dhankhar, DCP (crime), said, “Many people don’t know that hacking into someone’s account or uploading an obscene picture on a social networking site is a crime.”