Hard-drive Disposal and Identity Fraud

Abstract

A personal computer is often used to store personal information about the user. This information may be intentionally kept by the user or information maybe automatically stored as the result of the user's activities. In this paper we investigate whether it is possible for identity fraud to occur as a result of post-disposal access to the residual data stored on a personal computer's hard drive. We provide indicative types of information required to commit an identify fraud and examine the personal information contained in a series of secondhand personal computer hard disk drives, purchased as part of a wider research study.