Canadian polling on ID theft

The Canadian Press is reporting on a handful of statistics related to identity theft in Canada, compiled by Phone Busters:

IDiots? Bank warns against identity theft miscues:

TORONTO (CP) - More than 9,000 people in Canada have had their identities stolen this year, and a new poll indicates 77 per cent of Canadians worry about identity theft but only 10 per cent feel they know what to do about it.

Identity theft occurs when criminals steal and use personal information, such as a social insurance number and date of birth, to assume a person's identity and make purchases or open credit card accounts and other debt lines in the assumed name.

According to PhoneBusters, the central agency that collects information on identity theft in Canada, there were 9,034 victims of identity theft reported in the first 10 months of this year, with losses totalling $7.2 million.

The early-November poll for the Canadian subsidiary of U.S.-based Capital One Financial Corp. found 45 per cent of the 2,002 adults surveyed do not monitor their credit reports on a regular basis for errors or suspicious items.

The Ipsos Reid survey, which claims a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, 'reveals that consumers should be more cognizant of some simple practices that could help protect against identity theft,' says Capital One Bank....