Use of stolen credit cards leads to false accusations

If your personal information is compromised, the threat of fraud may pale in comparison to being falsely accused of being involved with illegal pornography involving children.

Thousands of people were investigated after credit card information was found when a Texas-based company was busted for selling access to child pornography. Many of the credit cards were stolen, but some aggressive police forces around the world used the mere existence of the credit card information as evidence of illegal conduct. Some lost jobs and at least one other committed suicide.

Canadian police, it appears, were more cautious and set out bait to see if those identified were inclined to actually seek out the child pornography.

Having your credit destroyed is bad enough, but getting dragged into something like this is off the charts ...

Read the full CBC investigative report here: CBC News: Global child porn probe led to false accusations.

Thanks to Adam at Emergent Chaos for the link: Emergent Chaos: Identity Theft and Child Pornography.

Technorati tags: Privacy :: Personal Information :: Fraud :: Identity Theft