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From May to November in 2013, GongGam had participated in ¡°the fact-finding and policy alternatives promotion research for the homeless identity theft (illegal name usage of the homeless). This project, which was led by an organization called ¡°Homeless Action,¡± was the winner of 2013 public contest for human rights protection and promotion support project by the Seoul Metropolis.
This project aimed to examine the actual conditions of the homeless identity theft cases where the homeless suffer from serious financial damage by the consequences of providing his/her documents for identification - such as a copy of the resident registration and of the authenticated certificate of his seal – after being lured by the words of offering him/her a job opportunity, money, or board and lodging. Appropriate policy alternatives were to be prepared based on the project results. The survey consisted of face-to-face interviews with 100 homeless people who lived on the streets, or facilities for the Homeless and dosshouses in Seoul. In-depth interviews with 15 homeless people, legal counseling and follow-up support for the victimized, analyses on the current national and foreign legislations and systems also constituted parts of the survey. GongGam had participated in the whole course of the research by giving legal counseling and support every week, questionnaire studies, in-depth interviews, institution analyses, etc. Especially, it was meaningful to have volunteers from GongGam and practical trainees from various law schools and the Judicial Research and Training Institute who partially participated in the project.

¡ã The expert discussion meeting on ¡°A field research on the homeless identity theft cases¡± held on 19 November 2013. (Photo provided by Homeless Action)
Examples from the part of the interview survey from the fact-finding research result as follow:
In the questionnaires regarding identity theft cases, we have defined ¡°the illegal usage of names¡± as either when one got to know that his/her name was used even though he/she had not given his/her seal or issued related documents, or coerced to issue identification papers. We have included cases when a person directly issues or draws up identification documents expecting fixed rewards under the label of ¡°title lending.¡± Out of the 100 questionnaire survey targets, three-fourths (77 cases) suffered damage from title lending and the rest one-fourth (25 cases) were damaged from the illegal usage of names. 2 of the respondents corresponded to both categories. From these results, we have seen that the identity theft is very common and widespread among the homeless themselves.
According to the questions requiring respondents to give reasons that led to identity theft and name lending, identity theft and name lending were done in the listed order: ¡®to prepare livelihood (25.7%),¡¯ ¡®being told to be provided with shelter and residence (13.2%),¡¯ ¡®being asked a favor by an acquaintance (11%),¡¯ ¡®lost wallet or identification while living on the streets (11%),¡¯ ¡®being offered payment for drinking or money (10.3%)¡¯ and ¡®being offered a job (8.1%).¡¯
For the question asking the respondents to mark everything that was relevant to their cases, the results of the damage caused by identity theft were dispersed over illegally registered phone (25.5%), illegally registered car (17.6%), being a front man (17.2%), fake deposit bank passbook (16.5%) and loan from financial institution (9.0%). The whole number of the damage cases was 267, and dividing the total by the number of the surveyed subjects makes the average damage occurrences of 3 cases per person. As a result, the victims were suffering from psychological stress and pressure, financial pressure, criminal implications, difficulties in securing employment, wage garnishment and suspended payment of deposit.
A Field Research on the Homeless Identity Theft Cases was successfully completed in November 2013. Alternatives- seeking forum, co-sponsored by MP Choi, Dong Ic and the Homeless Memorial Ceremony Joint Planning Group will be held on 19 December 2013 based on the results of the project. Please continue to pay closer attention to the activities to solve the identity theft problems experienced by the Homeless.
By Hye Ryung Cha, Attorney at GongGam