The Australian Identity Crime Response System: A Sociotechnical Systems Perspective

Megan Wyre

doi:10.25907/00478

Identity credentials, such as driver licences, passports, and bank statements, have become essential for individuals across the community to access various goods and services. This can include lines of credit, such as personal loans, post-paid mobile phone contracts, as well as access to government services such as medical rebates and welfare. Criminal recognition of this interdependency is well established, as reported incidents of identity crime continues to grow across the world, involving the impersonation of an individual’s identity through the compromise and misuse of identity credentials. Identity crime has been estimated to cost the Australian economy up to $2.59 billion AUD and affects millions of Australians every year. Accordingly, identity crime is said to now impact a higher portion of the Australian population per annum than any other household-theft related crime, such as burglary and related personal property thefts. Beyond the initial cost of the crime event, identity crime causes victims personal, financial, and reputation costs. Yet there remains limited research into the efficacy of recovery and restoration processes available to victims. Previously in the criminology literature there has been a predominant focus on criminal and victim behaviour and how these may contribute to the causation of identity crime. Many prevention strategies that are relied upon today are predicated on these behaviours. However, little research has been conducted on the response period after the crime has occurred, and whether or not there are opportunities for crime prevention that circumvent the actions of the criminal or victim in this context. This research aims to explore the characteristics of Australia’s identity crime response system from an individual victim’s perspective. Data were captured from the response journeys of a representative sample of 200 individual identity crime victims over a 12-month period, as well as by examining contemporary organisational response processes from 120 organisations across the Australian identity crime response system. These data were used to map the tasks performed, information communicated, and the social engagements between response actors and victims. Using the sociotechnical system analysis methodology, Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST), the research systematically characterised Australia’s actual identity crime response system, gauging its interdependencies, and opportunities for optimisation of response efforts in the process. Preliminary analysis of survey responses, as well as networks identified using the EAST methodology, found that the identity crime response system is almost entirely dependent on the actions of the victim to respond to, and limit the harm caused by, identity crime. Identity crimes were shown to be inherently diverse and as such the response system was found to be disjointed and did not present any form of general cooperation between government, businesses, or the individual in order to mitigate risks from identity crime, nor did it appear to be orientated to explicitly address the needs of the victim. Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) theory was applied to the EAST analysis to identify opportunities to optimise identity crime prevention or intervention strategies in the identity crime response system. The goal of this analysis was to offer strategies for systemic improvements to the rates of identity crime, and potentially strengthen victims of this crime against repeat victimisations over time. These were presented in the five main SCP framework categories of ‘increasing effort, increasing risk, reducing reward, reducing provocations, and removing excuses’. Recommendations generated from this analysis include allowing victims to permanently change their identity credentials to prevent further victimisation; a report-to-one-report-to-all system that quickly proliferates information to all response actors, including the victim; permanent credit bans that only the victim has the ability to remove; a more universal and empowered victim acknowledgement scheme to regulate reporting standards and processes; intervention task forces that are formed from multiple sector actors and are aimed at helping alert the victim; and properly funded guidance from support services.

The Australian Identity Crime Response System: A Sociotechnical Systems Perspective

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