Root cause analysis (RCA) as a preliminary tool into the investigation of identity theft

Abstract

Identity theft has been known for some centuries whereby falsified identity documents were misused as well as offences such as impersonating others were common in the society. However, the advent of technology changed the method used for conducting this crime, whereby through the use of the Internet, personal information is can be stolen and misused by criminals. The crime has its causes originating from human error and judgement to failure of computing and networking systems that allow unauthorized access to personal information. In order to provide a better tool of investigating this crime, there is the need to explore the causes of the crime thereby providing a better framework for investigating Identity theft crimes. This study uses Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as a preliminary tool that serves to provide a depicted identification of the causes of Identity theft paving the way into investigating the crime and creating incident response plans.