Identity theft
A serious harm of data breaches is identity theft. Identity theft can harm individuals when their personal data is stolen and is used by another party to create financial harm such as withdrawing their money, non financially such as fraudulently claiming their health benefits, and pretending to be them and committing crimes. Based on data collected from 2002 to 2009 from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the use of data breach notification has helped to decrease identity theft by 6.1 percent.