As our lives move online, it isn’t always easy to protect our personal information. Teens and young adults are particularly vulnerable because they tend to spend more time online.
Fortunately, a new study has found a majority of teens are aware of online identity theft and take this problem seriously.
This study came from the Family Online Safety Institute. Researchers polled teenagers and asked them how concerned they were about online identity theft.
Fifty-one percent of respondents said they were “very concerned.” This is up from 43 percent only a year ago, so awareness of this issue is growing.
“Fifty-one percent said they were
‘very concerned’ about identity theft.”
Another encouraging sign is teenagers were aware of why they are vulnerable to identity theft.
Identify thieves often target teenagers because they typically use credit cards. As a result, they don’t regularly review their credit history, so if a thief opens a fraudulent account, the victim might not discover the issue for years.
Seventy-three percent of survey participants correctly identified this problem as the reason why they are vulnerable to identity theft.
What’s concerning is teenagers seem to think identity theft is a problem for other people. Only 29 percent of respondents thought they personally were vulnerable.
Close to a third of respondents also said they shared the login information to at least one online account with someone other than their parents. This risky behavior can easily lead to identity theft or impersonation from the other person.
While teenagers, like nearly every American, still need to get smarter about protecting their identities, it seems like they are making progress. Hopefully next year’s results will show even more improvement.
Source: fosi.org. Photo source: revington.net