Privacy breaches, social media, online data security, and phishing can all lead in one way or another to identity theft. When a person's personal information is overwritten by an unknown person, either because the information was leaked by an agency or you provided it on a social networking site. You may have simply clicked on a URL you weren't aware of and gave your information. When sensitive information is lost, the use of that information can be so destructive that it causes you to lose your identity in society. When your details have been compromised, or deleted by a malicious person, or used for another cause, then this type of theft is very dangerous for the person who lost them. Identity, if summarized, can be described as “Body + Information = Identity” (McNally, 2011). Of course, we can say that fingerprints are one of the means by which our identity can be proven, but personal information is certainly also a necessary tool to prove your existence in society. These can be stored in the form of documents such as social security number, passport, etc. There is a fine line between biological evidence and information contained in documents, such as your existence is obvious, that you were born, but information confirming the location date. and the time of your birth is very linked to your identity. This information all constitutes your identity. That said, credentials must be kept safe, otherwise they can be used against us and can harm our social existence. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the government agency responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing tax law in the United States (IRS, 2014). It strives to combat identity theft. They rec...... middle of paper ......these connections. Technology has allowed us to extend and improve our social lives, whether for professional or personal reasons, and our relationships are much more varied and rich. Devices such as smartphones have become essential - more than a billion smartphones were sold worldwide last year. (Zeman, 2014). However, our reliance on technology has its pitfalls, and we are also more vulnerable, often for reasons we don't know or understand. If we want to maintain our security, we must find ways to do so that fit our lifestyles. We can change behavior, through education and training, but ideally we should design safety from the ground up, rather than adding to it or trying to impose actions that people simply won't follow. not because they find them irritating or think they are just not important. Safety should be something that happens.