Report: As Child ID Theft Grows Rapidly, Consider These Precautions

A new report shows children are much more likely to be the victims of identity theft than adults, and that the crimes can go unnoticed for years.

Children make tempting targets because they aren't going to be using their identities for a long time and parents don't usually monitor their identities, wrote report author Richard Power, of Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab cybersecurity research center.

The report took a look at identity protection scans of 42,232 children during 2009-10 who were a part of the Debix AllClear ID Protection Network after they were notified their IDs may have been compromised. Debix sells security services to corporations, and similar services to families via AllClear ID.