Ellisville Police Join Incentive-based Website to ID Criminals

The announced its participation in an online program meant to help catch criminals connected to identity theft.

This week's announcement refers to the website IDThisPerson.com, which involves police across the United States posting photographs of people suspected of committing some form of fraud, identity theft or a related crime. When a user identifies someone they know on the site, they are asked to provide the subject's name, suspected location and any additional details known.

Users submitting an ID also are asked for their email addresses, which are used for sending a $25 gift card through a third party. The site maintainers wrote that IDThisPerson.com does not collect or view email addresses.

The website creators say an overwhelming number of unsolved identity theft-related cases led to the site being built: "One of the reasons behind the creation of the IDThisPerson.com site is because too many criminal investigations get closed because the suspect was not identified, even though an image was available."

The site creators acknowledge that in high-profile cases, photos of suspects already often are sent to television stations or newspapers.

"Although this is sometimes useful, these images may not be seen by those who know the suspect. Once the image is aired on television it normally is not available for future public viewing, meaning that if the right person isn't watching the news at the exact time a suspect's image appears, they are not going to see it."

The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that between 2007 and 2008, about 5 percent of adults or 11.7 million people in the United States were identity theft victims. Fewer than a quarter of those victims, however, suffered a personal financial loss because of it.

The total financial losses related to identity theft within the same period was almost $17.3 billion.