Fraud vs Identity Theft

70% of young adults ages 18 to 22 experienced an AI-related scam in the past year.

50% of the general population experienced an AI-related scam in the past year.

24% of young adults have been a victim of an extortion scam.

72% of African member countries reported the presence of scam centres.

14% of reported cybercrime cases in Africa in 2025 involved identity theft and financial fraud.

15% of executives are targeted by social media imposter accounts.

36% of restaurants experienced fraudulent refund requests as a form of social engineering in the past year.

30% of restaurants experienced AI-generated voice or video impersonating executives to authorize fraudulent payments in the past year.

Adoption of AI-powered fraud detection grew by 71% year-on-year.

Detected threats increased by 77% as fraudsters use AI to scale and personalize harmful messaging.

44% of security leaders use AI-based solutions for threat detection and fraud prevention.

19% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland have turned off voicemail recordings to prevent voice cloning.

85% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland say it is hard to tell a scam apart from the real thing, up from 66% in 2025.

88% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland say it is becoming harder to tell what online content is genuinely human or real.

Account-problems scams are the highest-volume scam type, with 74% of victims sharing high-value personally identifiable information (PII).

14% of young adults have been a victim of an impersonation scam.

10% of the general population have been a victim of an impersonation scam.

14% of reported cybercrime cases in Africa in 2025 involved identity theft and financial fraud.

64% of executives have Social Security numbers exposed in breach data.

54% of executives have their Social Security numbers listed for sale on dark web marketplaces.

38% of security and IT leaders identify compromised AI identity and session theft as security incidents tied to AI systems.

One in ten adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland have had explicit AI images made of them without consent.

81% of parents in the surveyed countries fear their child's likeness will be stolen.

19% of adults aged 18+ in the United States, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland have experienced AI-driven identity harm, rising to 30% among Gen Z.

Fraudulent employment accounted for 40% of misuse cases for children and dependents.

35% of identity crime victims report losses exceeding $10,000.

Nearly 68% of identity crime victims who have not contacted the ITRC have seriously considered self-harm.

11% of identity crime victims report losses greater than $1,000,000.

Synthetic fraud showed an eight-fold global increase year over year.

More than one in ten frauds (11%) involve a synthetic identity.