Consumer Identity Theft Prevention And Identity Fraud Detection Behaviours: An Application Of The Theories Of Planned Behaviour And Protection Motivation

Abstract

<p>Consumer behaviour has and may increasingly have a vital role to play in protecting personal data. Understanding the behaviours of consumers in preventing identity theft and detecting identity fraud is therefore key to creating programs that minimize exposure and potential loss. In this study, based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), an exploratory study elicited salient beliefs about identity theft prevention and detection behaviours. These beliefs were then used to create a survey to measure the strength of the salient beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviours, which was administered online and produced 351 valid responses. Statistical analysis was performed on eight behavioural groups, based primarily on principal component analysis of twelve behaviours. The groups were: using physical security, practicing password security, monitoring bank accounts and credit cards, getting a credit report, checking the land registry, using 'remember my password', clicking on a link in an e-mail, and giving out personal information over the phone. Results showed that beliefs with a significant influence on consumer intentions for a given behavioural group were a mix of beliefs about identity theft in general and beliefs about the behaviours in that group. While attitudes towards behaviours of consumers in any specific group had a significant influence on the intent to perform behaviours peculiar to that group, they had virtually no impact on the intent to perform behaviours in other groups. The intent to perform identity theft prevention and identity fraud detection behaviours uniformly had a statistically significant influence on actual reported behaviour, but much of the variance in behaviour was unexplained. An analysis of qualitative responses showed that gender, language and age all had significant impacts on respondents' likelihood of mentioning specific vulnerabilities, and prevention and detection measures.</p>