Conclusion

Identity-related crime has always been present in Belgium. The traditional identity-related crime concerns mainly documents, such as the theft, forgery and the use of false identity documents (as in lookalike fraud), especially for travel and immigration purposes.

Although this identity-related crime still takes place, and technical measures are introduced, such as biometric passports which should combat lookalike fraud, the focus of attention in the press and of the public is the last few years shifting towards online identity-related crime, such as phishing and online credit fraud. Governmental authorities seem to be willing to take the concerns provoked by this new kind of crime into account. The government has already decided to introduce the eID card for all Belgian citizens, which should allow inter alia secure identification and authentication online. Several other initiatives are taken on federal governmental level, both by the Department of Economy and the Federal Police, for example a single website for the notification by the public of online fraud and unfair trade practices. These initiatives lead to the collection of more data, which allow in turn further investigation and research on the need for a distinct criminal provision of identity theft/fraud. The reporting by citizens also shows inter alia that the awareness campaigns are useful. Such campaigns are regularly made in order to make the public aware of the risks of providing personal and financial data through online channels.

Until now, the reported cases of online identity-related fraud have been rather limited in number, persons involved and amount lost. However, nothing indicates that online identity-related fraud may not become far more important in the coming years. The reported events indicate that there is an increasing trend. Because of the rather high penetration of Internet use with the population in Belgium and the steady increase of e-commerce, the factors which are responsible for identity-related crime are also present for an increase in online identity-related crime.

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D12.10: Normality Mining: Results from a Tracking Study

Within FIDIS, WP3 and WP12 have dealt with RFID, WP11 has investigated
mobility and identity while WP6 has examined biometrics and WP7 profiling.
The aim of this report is to bring these disparate threads together into a tangible
study which will demonstrate privacy issues surrounding products and services
which are likely to start emerging on to the consumer market.
New generations of mobile handsets, with integrated devices like GPS and
internet capabilities, are becoming less like traditional phones. In fact we
should stop viewing them as simply mobile phones - they are now more like
mobile computers which can make phone calls. These advances in mobile
technologies will inevitably lead to new services which we can enjoy anywhere,
anytime. Location Based Services which utilise the phone’s GPS to tell us for
example where we are, or where the nearest cinema is, are an obvious first step
– but what happens if the phone monitors where we go at all times? Can these
new services build a picture of who we are based on where we have been? Can
they use this profile of us to understand what we like and tailor their results
specifically to us? And if so, at what cost to our privacy? In this report, aimed
at the potential consumers of such services, we will look at results from a recent
tracking study which examines these issues.

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