 The Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report this week of 2021 data about identity theft. Data in the report are from the 2021 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collected data from persons about their experiences within a year’s time with identity theft and data breach notifications.
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The data shows that, within the year 2021, 12% of all persons ages 16 or older were notified that an entity with their personal information experienced a data breach in the prior 12 months. Victims of identity theft (24%) were twice as likely as nonvictims (11%) to learn that an entity that held their personal information had experienced a data breach over the previous year. Victims of multiple types of identity theft (32%) were also more likely than victims of existing credit card (25%), bank (16%), or email or social media account (23%) misuse to learn that an entity with their personal information experienced a data breach.
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