LifeLock

Do you speak English? Do you shop online? If so, you’re twice as likely as others to become a victim of identity theft, according to a study commissioned by PayPal. Respondents from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada admitted to riskier online behaviors than did those from Spain, Germany and France.

Ten percent of the English-speaking online shoppers who participated in the study have been victims of identity theft; 25% of the English-speaking respondents knew a friend or family member who had been ID theft victims.

Compare that to 3% of participants from Germany, Spain and France who had suffered identity theft, and the 10% of non-English speaking participants who knew an ID theft victim.

Other findings from the study:

• 60% of Americans, and 56% of the French share their passwords with friends or family members. Only 28% of German participants shared their passwords.
• 50% of all 1,000 participants create weak passwords by using their names or birthdates
• 40% of all participants use social networking sites, and 25% of the French divulge their names or birthdates on those sites. Only 10% from the UK and Canada took that risk.
• 50% of all participants receive financial statements by mail
• 23% of the Spanish respondents own personal shredder, compared to only 17% of the French. A separate study by the Identity Theft Resource Center and Fellows Inc. showed that 73 of Americans own shredders.

Right now ID theft is concentrated in countries in areas with a higher e-commerce level, but Michael Barrett, chief information security officer for PayPal predicted that as e-commerce becomes more popular outside the US, UK and Canada, fraudulent activity will increase. “Fraudsters will likely follow the money,” Barrett said.

One thousand people from six countries participated in the study; all had shopped online in the previous 90 days. The age and gender of the participants was representative of online populations in their respective countries.

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