Company owners and business directors are the new targets of choice for identity scammers, according to credit-scoring agency Experian.
The organisation has warned that criminals looking to steal a person’s identity are increasingly targeting better-off individuals, with such attacks often orchestrated by organised gangs rather than petty criminals.
Company directors and business people are being left at risk from organisations that hold large amounts of sensitive data but which have failed to implement effective security systems to thwart criminals, Experian suggested, and were the most common targets in 2006.
"Those individuals most likely to fall victim will use restaurants more often, spend more time in hotels and rent more cars," said Experian’s Jill Stevens. "These organisations hold a huge amount of personal data but may not necessarily have the levels of security that a large retail bank would have."
Nearly half of the 2,124 people who contacted Experian’s helpline in 2006 were not aware their identity had been stolen until they were contacted by a financial services company, it added.
Many attacks were now being carried out using an individual’s current address rather than a previous one, the firm claimed, although people living in rented flats remained high-risk as criminals could get access to post through shared front doors or claim to be previous occupants.
Partly due to a surge in publicity around identity theft, instances following the theft or loss of personal items only accounted for 2% of cases in 2006, the research suggested.
The majority of identity theft in the UK takes place in London, the body claims.