A new report warns that identity fraudsters are targeting lower income consumers living in rented accommodation.
According to identity fraud protection service CreditExpert, criminals are turning their attention away from stealing the identities of wealthy individuals, to those of people in rented homes, whose personal details are most vulnerable.
The group, which analysed the details of 5,000 victims of identity fraud, said the three groups of people who were most likely to be targeted all lived in rented properties in and around cities.
It found young professionals who were single and lived in shared rented accommodation were most likely to have their identifies stolen, and were more than twice as likely as average to be victims of the crime.
The second most likely group of people to be targeted were single people in their 30s living in social housing, followed by graduates who were in private rented accommodation in good areas.
All of these groups were more likely to be victims of identity theft than company directors and business owners and high earners living in expensive properties.
Identity theft involves criminals using people's personal details to apply for credit or benefits in their name.
The Group said people who rented their home, or those who had shared hallways, were easy targets for mail interception, which was a key tactic used by fraudsters.
It added that renters were also vulnerable because their tendency to move more often than homeowners meant they were more likely to forget to redirect all their mail.
Darryl Bowman, director of CreditExpert, said:
"Criminals are switching their focus from the wealthy to people whose details they can get hold of more easily.
"Because of this, each one of us needs to be aware of the dangers of ID fraud and take steps to protect our identity and stop thieves from getting access to our personal information."
The research also found that people in London were nearly four times more likely to be victims of identity fraud than the average person across the UK, with those in St Albans, Slough, Guildford and Windsor also at a high risk.
Outside the South East, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow were identified as being identity theft hotspots.
New research finds that the gap between children growing up in social housing and their peers in other housing types is now wider than it has ever been.
Growing up in Social Housing was launched at the Chartered Institute of Housing's Annual Conference in Harrogate. It sfinds that as the social housing sector has become smaller and more targeted, children living in social housing are increasingly disadvantaged compared to children in other housing.
They scored lower in measures of adulthood health, well-being, education, employment and income than those who did not grow up in social housing. And, this gap has grown over time.
Commissioned by the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Scottish Government, the study draws on the four British birth cohort studies, which track people born in 1946, 1958, 1970 and 2000, to examine the role of social housing in four generations of families.
The report also finds that for those born in 1946, social housing was high quality and had a rich social mix. In successive generations, children growing up in social housing were more likely to come from disadvantaged families and to have disadvantaged neighbours, and less likely to be in high quality, desirable homes.
However, it is not proven that social housing in childhood itself causes disadvantage later on. The background characteristics of children and their families explained all the differences for the earliest generation, and still explain a major part for later generations born in 1958 and 1970.
TSA chief executive, Peter Marsh said:
"There needs to be co-ordinated action to tackle inequality. This research reinforces the need for social housing policy to be integrated within a wider context, with education, childcare and neighbourhood policies.
"We also need to re-examine the role of allocation policies as well as new build policies if we are to recreate the sort of mixed income communities we saw in post-war social housing. It cannot be seen as simply bricks and mortar."
