A reported of 7 percent of smartphone users fell victim to identity fraud in 2011 and it is shown that smartphone users are likely to become victim than non-users by more than thirty percent (Lipka, 2012). It is clear that identity thieves are always a head in their plan. Solving an identity theft crimes is also challenging investigation. The actually damage to the victims is often not visible at crime scene but it has a strong potential to deteriorate the victim's credit and it can be difficult to resolve. When there is no witnesses or physical evidence, and the crime scene can be a thousand mile away from where victim resides can take much longer to solve (Dadisho, 2005). Along with the lack of private financial institutions cooperation and their enthusiasm to increase security measure is another challenge for law enforcement. To alleviate the overlooking of consumer's privacy have been compromised, the new federal law of FACT Act is enforced to have financial institutions to act on claim if victim presents a police report that documenting the identity theft occurs. Thus, it is essential to have a basic knowledge of how to prevent crimes from happening and what step to takes when crime is already committed. .
With the higher chance of becoming a victim, the increase of smartphone users has contributed to the rise of identity theft crime and learning to properly use your smart devices is critical to inhibit theft to get your information. There are numerous of people who like to upgrade their smartphone often and sell off their old phone to others. Most of these phone contains personal information and it is scary to find that hacker can retrieved these information even though data is already removed by the seller (Why you should never sell your old cell phone, 2013). NBC news also clarified that sometimes by resetting your phone or computer to factory setting can still leave a remarkable amount of data.