Bengaluru is identity-theft capital of India

Bengaluru, Aug 30: The latest data by the National Crime Records Bureau has said that Bengaluru is the identity theft capital of the world. Here criminals have succeeded in getting access to smartphones, email accounts and financial instruments of unsuspecting victims.

Bengaluru accounted for nearly 72 per cent of the total identity theft cases (1,685) registered across 19 metropolitan cities in the country. The other cities that registered a high number of cases were Kanpur and Surat with 119 and 109 cases respectively.

According to Section 66C of the Information Technology Act of 2000 the punishment for identity theft is up to three years in jail and a fine that may extend up to Rs 1 lakh.

At the state level Karnataka topped the list of such cases. Of the 4,071 cases registered across the country 1,764 were from Karnataka for the year 2021. Bengaluru also topped in number of cyber crime cases (6,423) followed by Hyderabad (3,303). Mumbai reported 2,833 cases in the year 2021.

However Karnataka cybercrime count has been on the decline. The cases have registered from 12,020 in 2019 to 10,741 in 2020 and 8,136 in 2021. However these cases have gone up in Telangana from 2,691 in 2019 to 10,303 in 2021.