By now you should know that identity theft criminals know no boundaries. Child identity theft is a particularly disturbing and very dangerous crime for these small victims. To put it plainly, it can ruin the youngster’s life before it even begins.

A research study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research, a leading independent provider of financial research services, announced recently on a press release titled “Increased Vigilance by Parents Needed to Protect Children’s Identities” that children are also at high risk of identity theft. Take a moment to read the press release and it should give you a good idea of how this is possible.

To give a brief summary of the findings of the above research, the study showed that out of 500 children studied by the research 5% of them had credit reports, all of which had an average $12,000 in fraudulent debts. A few victims in the study had bills and credit lines in collections. A small percentage of the subjects had mortgage loans tied to their social security numbers.

One of the biggest problems with child identity theft is that clues about the issue may not surface until years down the road. The fraudulent accounts may go undetected for a long time and all of this can cause very serious consequences for the child when they get older mostly in terms of credit worthiness.

Parents typically do not consider this an issue because children do not have credit files, but the risks are real no matter what age the victim is.  So it is absolutely necessary for parents to take the same preventive measures they use to protect their information and ensure their child’s identity is protected.

If the crime goes undetected for an extended period,  the child will encounter the same problems anyone with bad credit will experience in their adult life, being denied employment, college tuition loans, or any other type of credit.

Protecting a child’s identity is not as difficult as protecting an adult’s, it all starts with careful handling of their information at home, most places in possession of children’s sensitive information are medical facilities, schools, and membership clubs. Anyone else that requests the information of your children should provide a very good reason for it.

If you have not had the chance to read about those prevention steps, take a moment to download our “free identity theft prevention guide”. You’ll find many of the basic steps you need to follow now to protect your identity and that of your child’s.