• Identity theft is when an individual, using stolen personal information, imitates another person for his own gain. Most criminals use identity theft to steal money, such as by accessing financial accounts, but some steal identities to learn information or to be given access to certain social situations. On the Internet, victims face a number of dangers.
  
  

Financial Losses

• The most common danger of identity theft is financial loss. If an identity thief gains access to a person's bank account or credit card number, he can use it to transfer money to his own account or to make purchases. If done skillfully, the victim may not know that the theft has been committed until weeks later, when he reads the statement issued by his financial institutions. While in some cases the victim is able to reverse these charges and have them taken off his record, in other instances this can be enormously difficult. For example, if the thief provided sufficient information to the retailer, the victim may be unable to prove that he did not make the charges himself. The damage from this theft can be long lasting, too, if the thief racks up enough debts to harm the victim's credit rating, which can jeopardize his ability to take out loans.
  
  

Data Theft

• In addition to the loss of money, victims of identity theft can face the loss of sensitive information. If an identity thief is able to break into a person's email account or hack into his computer, he can have access to a wealth of information. Some of this information may be of a sensitive nature, such as correspondences with loved ones, or it may be financial valuables, such as in the case of certain documents related to a person's work. For example, if sensitive company documents were stolen, the thief could potentially sell them to competitors or use the inside information to make skillful financial investments. One of the difficulties of this kind of theft is that once information is stolen, it's often out in the open forever and no longer private.
  
  

Broken Relationships

• Some forms of Internet identity theft can jeopardize personal relationships as well. If an identity thief gets hold of the passwords to certain accounts, such as those for email, instant messaging and social networking, the thief can potentially wreak havoc in the person's social life by pretending to be him. By taking on the person's identity, the thief can both attribute false statements to the victim and extract sensitive information from his friends and family. The ultimate effect of this can be strained or even broken personal relationships and great emotional pain.