NCVS Identity Theft Supplement

The Identity Theft Supplement (ITS), one supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), obtains additional information about identity theft among persons, the characteristics of identity theft victims, and patterns of reporting to the police, credit bureaus, and other authorities. The ITS was conducted for the first time in 2008.

For the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the definition of identity theft includes three general types of incidents: - unauthorized use or attempted use of an existing account - unauthorized use or attempted use of personal information to open a new account - misuse of personal information for a fraudulent purpose.

Reports examining identity theft victimization at the person level use data from an identity theft supplement to the NCVS. The supplement collects data from all NCVS respondent age 16 or older about experiences with identity theft. Reports examining identity theft victimization at the household level use data from the core NCVS, in which the head of the household reports on the experiences with identity theft of all household members age 12 or older.