Researchers from the University of Ballarat have been awarded a grant to explore the chances of identity theft through websites such as Facebook and other social media sites.

The trustees of the Telematics Trust have awarded $29,990 to the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) to develop a new product named IDThief.

"We will develop an application that will allow users to log in to a site like Facebook," Paul Watters, Director of the ICSL, said.

"We will then use the data they have stored there to mine the ‘deep web’ and estimate how likely they are to be at risk of identity theft.

"The goal is to sensitise users to the ways in which identity thieves use social networking to obtain personally identifying data.

"This product could be extremely useful to prevent identity theft anywhere around the world."

The project is due to be completed by the end of 2013.

The ICSL is a joint project between the University of Ballarat, IBM, Westpac, the Victorian Government and the Australian Federal Police.

21 November 2012