Identity theft is the focus for an event to take place in September as part of Irish involvement in the Global Security Week initiative.
The half-day seminar will highlight the dangers of this kind of fraud to businesses and consumers and to show how to prevent becoming a victim to it.
Speakers on the day will include representatives of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and ENISA (the European Network and Information Security Agency). A presentation from the Companies Registration Office will cover identity theft in a business context. Following the scheduled sessions, there will be a panel discussion involving the day’s speakers who will answer questions from the audience.
Identity theft, which is said to be one of the biggest criminal growth areas, is defined as the abuse of an individual’s online personal information by another individual and/or company. A survey released by CA earlier this month found high awareness levels of the problem among Irish consumers, to the point that many refused to shop or transact online for fear of having their confidential information compromised or stolen.
Global Security Week is a global security awareness initiative in the week leading up to 11 September every year. The idea behind it is to co-ordinate and encourage a wide variety of security-related awareness activities worldwide during that time, taking advantage of the focus on security by the world’s media.
BH Consulting and Vigitrust, two Dublin-based IT security firms involved in Global Security Week, have organised the identity theft event, which will be held in the Burlington Hotel on Thursday 7 September from 2pm.
Brian Honan of BH Consulting pointed out that Global Security Week is a public awareness initiative, not a commercial or political venture. “We are not trying to obtain funding, derail other security awareness activities or focus on any particular aspect of security such as terrorism, information security or physical security,” he said.
Registration is open to anyone concerned with identity theft and places can be booked by contacting either Brian Honan on 01-4404065 or brian@globalsecurityweek.com or Mathieu Gorge on 01- 4100864 or Mathieu@globalsecurityweek.com.
By Gordon Smith
