> In all honesty, when your info gets leaked, don't you just cancel every credit card and bank account, get a new SSN, change your drivers license number, change your phone number and a few other numbers and move on with your life?
That is an insane pain in the ass. In this day of age just changing a credit card number is a pain; now changing your phone number is a new level of pain in the ass. Not only that but it's hard to get a new SSN; I've known plenty of people who requested a new one due to their SSN leaking and unless you have proof of identity theft many of them were simply declined.
Driver license numbers you typically don't need to change however. Almost all drive license numbers are generated simply based on your name (granted this depends on the state) so most of the time you can generate someone's number, accurately, just by knowing their name or a few other details about them. They're not really used to much.
That is an insane pain in the ass. In this day of age just changing a credit card number is a pain; now changing your phone number is a new level of pain in the ass. Not only that but it's hard to get a new SSN; I've known plenty of people who requested a new one due to their SSN leaking and unless you have proof of identity theft many of them were simply declined.
Driver license numbers you typically don't need to change however. Almost all drive license numbers are generated simply based on your name (granted this depends on the state) so most of the time you can generate someone's number, accurately, just by knowing their name or a few other details about them. They're not really used to much.