Criminal and procedural legal challenges of identity theft in the cyber and information age

JurisdictionSouth Africa
Citation(2017) 30 SACJ 363
Date24 May 2019
Pages363-384
Published date24 May 2019
AuthorVinesh Basdeo
Criminal and procedural legal
challenges of identity theft in the
cyber and information age
VINESH BASDEO*
ABSTRACT
Criminal s have increasingly become involved in cyb er activities but
practitioners in the c riminal jus tice arena do not seem to be keeping pace
with crime in a c yber context. Being comfor table with the technology t hat
underpins the in formation age is a non-negotiable ski ll for those who have
to unravel and bring twent y-rst century c rimes to book. The bir th of the
cyber and the in formation era has create d new criminal and procedural law
challenges in the ght agai nst identity theft. Identity thef t imposes immense
hardships upon its vict ims. There is often t he false and misguided bel ief
that it’s only the careless, tr usting and naive that fall victim to the tr ickeries
of identity thieves. The evolution of tec hnology and the resultant i ncrease
in individuals t ransacting electron ically has presented new oppor tunities
for identity thieves to get hold of persona l information. The per petrators
of identity theft of ten use the stolen identities to comm it fraud and to
violate the law. This article exam ines the challenges of identit y theft and
the inadequacy of ex isting legislation to address t his scourge. This ar ticle
further exa mines the extent and ef cacy of South Afr ican laws to deal with
the challenges presented by identit y theft. It also analys es the rudimentar y
powers that exist in Sout h African cri minal procedure wit h regards to
identity theft, and it f urther exam ines legislative solutions introduced i n
South Africa, t he United States of America and the United Ki ngdom. Finally,
this article prop oses possible recommendations to cou nteract identity thef t.
1 Introduction
This article proceed s from the notion that identity theft is not
a recent phenomenon, but rather that the advent of the cyber and
information age has created new opport unities for identity thieves,
and new criminal a nd procedural law challenges for law enforcement
agencies. Identity theft continuously manifests it self as one of the
fastest growing crimes of the t wenty-rst century.1 Recent trends and
developments indicate that no country is ful ly immune to this highly
* NDip(Pol) (Technikon SA) BA(Pol) BA(Hons)(Pol) LLB LL M LLD (Unisa), Professor
of Law, Unisa. This ar ticle is based on work na ncially supported by t he National
Research Foundation.
1 N Van der Meulen The Challenge of Co untering Identity Theft: Rec ent Developments
in the United States, the Unit ed Kingdom, and the European Union (20 06) 1.
363
(2017) 30 SACJ 363
© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd
complex crime .2 The development and growth of telecommunications
technology, which connects computers in networks and which enables
the transmission of in formation between computer systems, has
given impetus to the processing of personal i nformation.3 Netwo rks4
afford more users the opportun ity to have access to a wider range
of personal information, and enables th is information to be shared
across varied information technology platfor ms. The global economy
is dependent on the transfer of inform ation, including personal
information via global in formation networks.5 The collection of
information on individuals is a s old as civilisation itself.6 However the
development of information technology has inuenced the collection
and exploitation of personal in formation.7 Globally, the collection and
transfer of personal in formation has become an everyday occurrence.
Generally, individuals give out the information voluntari ly to social
service department s and on related networks, or as part of economic
and business transactions.8 However, sometimes personal in formation
is collected surreptitiously by means of tech nological inventions that
the data subje ct9 is not aware of, for example the use of cookies,10
radio frequency identication tags (RF ID tags) on consumer items;11
or the use of scanners with which in formation on a mobile device can
be collected.
2 MH Maras ‘Inter net of things: security and privac y implications’ (2015) 5 Internat’l
Data Privacy L 9 9.
3 DP Van der Merwe et al Information and Communications Technology Law 2ed
(2016) 3 63.
4 See M Watney ‘Identity thef t: the mirror re ects another face’ (20 04) 3 TSAR 51;
FCassim ‘Protect ing personal information in the e ra of identity theft: just how safe
is our personal i nformation from ident ity thieves?’ (2015) 18 PELJ 68; A Roos ‘D ata
protection: explai ning the international backdrop and eva luating the current South
African po sition’ (2007) 124 SALJ 40 0.
5 Ibid.
6 W Madsen Handbook of Per sonal Data Protection (19 92) 6.
7 Van der Merwe op cit (n3) 363.
8 AL Allen ‘An ethic al duty to protect one’s own in formation privac y?’ (2012) 64
Alabama LR 845 .
9 LA Bygrave ‘Automated proli ng: Minding the mach ine: Article 15 of the EC Dat a
Protection Dire ctive and automated proling’ (2001) 17 Computer Law and Se curity
17.
10 Van der Merwe op cit (n3) 364. A cookie is a s mall text le, usu ally a sequence of
numbers, which is sto red by a website on the computer of a user when v isiting the
particular website.
11 Information ab out a shopper’s preferences, where the shoppe r is shopping and
what he or she is buying, is collec ted and can be used in targeted adverti sements.
364 SACJ . (2017) 3
© Juta and Company (Pty) Ltd

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