Consumers

Abstract

On July 27, 2009, the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands launched a large public awareness campaign to prevent citizens from falling victim to cybercrime. During 5 weeks, the campaign which features a fictional character ‘Sandra,’ was seen on television and heard on the radio. In the commercial used for the campaign, Sandra reveals all. Her bank account number, pin code, log-in name, and video tapes of her holiday at the beach are made public. Sandra herself watches and listens as people gather on the street to witness the publication of all her information. She appears flabbergasted. She is the perfect depiction of the unaware and naϊve citizen. Security on the Internet, the campaign claims, is in your hands. To consider consumers, or citizens, as facilitators of financial identity theft is controversial, especially since such considerations maintain the potential to enter a slippery slope into the realm of blaming the victim. As a result, this chapter features a different approach from the previous three due to its more normative character as a means to make a contribution to the ongoing discussion on consumers as facilitators of financial identity theft. The ongoing discussion focuses primarily on the degree to which consumers maintain both the ability and responsibility to ‘prevent’ or at least reduce the risk of financial identity theft. Fred H. Cate describes how the most basic privacy protection is personal judgment and how the vital role of consumers in privacy protection is mostly ignored in discussions about the topic. Cate uses this notion to expand his argument and claims how the actions of individuals may provide the best defense against identity theft. “Despite all of the bills that have been introduced to combat identity theft, many of the most effective means continue to be those that individuals take to protect themselves: keeping a close watch on account activity; reporting suspicious or unfamiliar transactions promptly; properly destroying commercial solicitations; storing valuable documents securely; protecting account names and passwords; and never disclosing personal information to unknown callers.” The research results provided by Javelin Strategy & Research are in turn used as a means to substantiate this argument.