Title: CONCLUSION

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.