Editing Identity theft (section)

=== Australia ===
In [[Australia]], each state has enacted laws that deal with different aspects of identity or fraud issues. Some states have now amended relevant criminal laws to reflect crimes of identity theft, such as the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA), Crimes Amendment (Fraud, Identity and Forgery Offences) Act 2009, and also in Queensland under the Criminal Code 1899 (QLD). Other states and territories are in states of development in respect of regulatory frameworks relating to identity theft such as Western Australia in respect of the Criminal Code Amendment (Identity Crime) Bill 2009.

At the Commonwealth level, under the ''Criminal Code Amendment (Theft, Fraud, Bribery & Related Offences) Act 2000'' which amended certain provisions within the ''Criminal Code Act 1995'',

{{Blockquote|'''135.1 General dishonesty'''
(3) A person is guilty of an offense if
a) the person does anything with the intention of dishonestly ''causing a loss to another person''; and
b) the other person is a Commonwealth entity.
Penalty: ''Imprisonment for 5 years''.}}

Between 2014 and 2015 in Australia, there were 133,921 fraud and deception offences, an increase of 6% from previous year. The total cost reported by the Attorney General Department was:<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/IdentitySecurity/Documents/Identity-crime-and-misuse-in-Australia-2016.pdf|title=Identity crime and misuse in Australia|access-date=8 February 2018}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+Total costs<ref name=":4" />
!Fraud category
!Cost per incident
!Total direct cost
|-
|Commonwealth fraud
|$2,111
|$353,866,740
|-
|Personal fraud
|$400
|$656,550,506
|-
|Police recorded fraud
|$4,412 per unrecorded incident

$27,981 per recorded incident
|$3,260,141,049
|}
There are also high indirect costs associated as a direct result of an incident. For example, the total indirect costs for police recorded fraud is $5,774,081.<ref name=":4" />

Likewise, each state has enacted its own privacy laws to prevent the misuse of personal information and data. The Commonwealth ''Privacy Act'' applies only to Commonwealth and territory agencies and to certain private-sector bodies (where, for example, they deal with sensitive records, such as medical records, or they have more than $3 million in turnover PA).