[mmcnickle]

Ross Anderson sums this up nicely in "Security Engineering":

"I write ‘identity theft’ in quotes as it’s a propaganda term for the old-fashioned offence of impersonation. In the old days, if someone went to a bank, pretended to be me, borrowed money from them and vanished, then that was the bank’s problem, not mine. In the USA and the UK, banks have recently taken to claiming that it’s my identity that’s been stolen rather than their money, and that this somehow makes me liable. So I also parenthesise ‘victims’ — the banks are the real victims, except insofar as they commit secondary fraud against the customer."