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Home | Crime Type | Identity Theft
Identity Theft
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For the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the definition of identity theft includes three general types of incidents:

  • unauthorized use or attempted use of an existing account
  • unauthorized use or attempted use of personal information to open a new account
  • misuse of personal information for a fraudulent purpose.

Reports examining identity theft victimization at the person level use data from an identity theft supplement to the NCVS. The supplement collects data from all NCVS respondent age 16 or older about experiences with identity theft. Reports examining identity theft victimization at the household level use data from the core NCVS, in which the head of the household reports on the experiences with identity theft of all household members age 12 or older.

Publications & Products


Victims of Identity Theft, 2016 Presents data on the prevalence and nature of identity theft against persons age 16 or older in 2016, including how victims discovered the crime; financial losses and other consequences.
  Summary (PDF 164K) | Full report (PDF 552K) | Data tables (Zip format 98K)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Victims of Identity Theft, 2014 17.6 MILLION U.S. RESIDENTS EXPERIENCED IDENTITY THEFT IN 2014
  Press Release
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Victims of Identity Theft, 2014 Presents findings on the prevalence and nature of identity theft from the 2014 Identity Theft Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey.
  Press Release | Summary (PDF) | Full report (PDF 697KB) | ASCII file (41KB) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Victims of Identity Theft, 2012 Presents findings on the prevalence and nature of identity theft from the 2012 Identity Theft Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey.
  Press Release | Full report (PDF 1.32M) | ASCII file (41K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 32K)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Victims of Identity Theft, 2012 16.6 MILLION PEOPLE EXPERIENCED IDENTITY THEFT IN 2012
  Press Release
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Identity Theft Reported by Households, 2005-2010 Presents data on the nature of and trends in identity theft victimization among U.S. households from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
  Press Release | Full report (PDF 700K) | ASCII file (15K) | Zip format (22K)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Identity Theft Reported by Households, 2005-2010 IDENTITY THEFT REPORTED BY HOUSEHOLDS ROSE 33 PERCENT FROM 2005 TO 2010
  PDF
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Victims of Identity Theft, 2008 Presents findings from the 2008 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
  Press Release | Full report (PDF 665K) | ASCII file (31K) | Spreadsheets (Zip format 28K)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Identity Theft, 2005 Presents data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) on identity theft victimization and its consequences.
  Full report (PDF 205K) | ASCII file (22K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 9K)
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Identity Theft, 2004 "3.6 million U.S. households learned they were identity theft victims during a six-month period in 2004"
  Press Release | More information about this release
Part of the Identity Theft Series

Terms & Definitions

Identity theft Includes one or more of three types of incidents: (1) unauthorized use or attempted use of an existing account, (2) unauthorized use or attempted use of personal information to open a new account, or (3) misuse of personal information for a fraudulent purpose. Person level identity theft is captured in the Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Household level identity theft is captured by the main NCVS.