It's a self inflicted issue. They claim that "my identity" matters, so it matters.
Their decision making affects me through no action of my own.
If you sign up at Reddit with the username 'esotericn', I don't care. It doesn't matter.
Somehow, if someone signs up for, say, a phone contract in my name and doesn't pay it, it affects some opaque 'credit score' somewhere because an agency couldn't be arsed to do due diligence. They push the burden on to end consumers.
I sidestep most of this by just avoiding debt because I can't be arsed with the farce.
That's not actually how "identity theft" affects people for the most part.
The case of the police turning up at your door or some sort of court summons because a fake "TazeTSchnitzel" performed fraud is pretty rare.
What actually happens is some opaque credit score thing whereby you just find interacting with the system harder because someone else fucked up.
For example, an agency deciding that because fake "TazeT" managed to get a phone contract and didn't pay it, real "TazeT" must be a layabout and not pay his bills.
Or an account of yours has the password reset because someone sent in a photo of your ID gained from some database leak from a nightclub.
All of this comes about because of inaccurate linking of accounts. There are trivial ways of determining actual linkage, for example if I send money from account A to account B under the same name and it goes uncontested, it's the same identity.
Using stuff like photographs of bits of paper or things sent in the mail as proof is completely asinine. I get mail from half of my street because my postman is underpaid and can't be arsed.
Ah, yes, I see the argument about credit reports. Putting aside the question of whether they can exist at all, the security checks are laughable and therefore someone can make a black mark on yours by impersonating you with much greater ease than should be the case.
The other main category of problem that comes with identity theft is my own resources being used (e.g. an account, bank or otherwise) by a non-me.
Again, this goes away if you use real authentication rather than "oh, he has a photo of a pink bit of plastic with an address on it?, gosh must be him, here you go!".
It would be more expensive to do so, though, so we don't. The burden is pushed on to the end user.
It's a self inflicted issue. They claim that "my identity" matters, so it matters.
Their decision making affects me through no action of my own.
If you sign up at Reddit with the username 'esotericn', I don't care. It doesn't matter.
Somehow, if someone signs up for, say, a phone contract in my name and doesn't pay it, it affects some opaque 'credit score' somewhere because an agency couldn't be arsed to do due diligence. They push the burden on to end consumers.
I sidestep most of this by just avoiding debt because I can't be arsed with the farce.