IDENTITY theft soared by 45 per cent last year, a new report has revealed.

Fraud prevention service CIFAS estimates a 28 per cent rise by the end of this year - around 130,000 reported cases compared with 101,000 in 2003.

Britons are becoming increasingly fearful of identity theft in which fraudsters use someone else's personal details to apply for credit or benefits.

Financial services firm CPP Group's Stephen Chinn warned: "Identity theft is growing at a tremendous rate already and the UK financial services industry is anticipating a dramatic rise once chip and pin makes its impact."

The fear is that - as chip and pin makes credit card fraud more difficult - fraudsters will turn increasingly to identity theft.

"This type of fraud can affect any of us and all it takes is for a few personal details to fall into the wrong hands," said Mr Chinn.

He urged people to dispose of papers containing personal details, such as their name, address and date of birth, carefully, and warned them not to give personal details to cold callers or account information to people claiming to be from their bank.

Despite the growing problem of identity theft, around 18 per cent of people said they were unaware of the crime, a CPP Group survey showed.

Some 30 per cent did not realise they could be wrongly accused of criminal activities such as benefit fraud.

And 43 per cent of people did not know they could face problems opening a utility account if someone had damaged their credit record by borrowing money in their name.

First published: Sept 24