Bengaluru is identity-theft capital of India: NCRB

BENGALURU: When it comes to identity theft, Bengaluru tops the cities where criminals succeed in gaining access to smartphones, email accounts and financial instruments of unsuspecting victims.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau's Crime in India-2021 report, Bengaluru accounted for 72% of the total identity-theft cases (1,685) registered across 19 metropolitan cities in India. The other cities that registered more identity-theft cases were Kanpur (119 cases) and Surat (109).
Identity theft is when cybercriminals illegally access personal and critical information about an individual and compromise the same with ulterior motives, which includes siphoning off money from bank accounts or creating fake social-media profiles and taking control of accounts for personal vengeance.
Karnataka tops the list of identity thefts
The punishment for identity theft, according to Section 66C of the Information Technology Act, 2000, is up to three years in jail and a fine that may extend to Rs 1 lakh.
At the state level too, Karnataka has topped the list of identity thefts. Of the 4,071 identity-theft cases registered across the country, 1,764 cases were from Karnataka in 2021. In total cybercrimes (including those registered under IT Act, IPC and specialand local laws), Bengaluru again topped the list among metropolitan cities with 6,423 cases followed by Hyderabad (3,303 cases) and Mumbai (2,883 cases) in 2021. There has been a change in pattern at the state level.
Karnataka’s cybercrime count has been on the decline in the past three years and that of Telangana on the rise. In Karnataka, the cybercrime cases reduced from 12,020 in 2019 to 10,741 in 2020 and 8,136 in 2021. However, it shot up in Telangana from 2,691 cases in 2019 to 10,303 cases in 2021.