Across various domains of social life, organizational reliance on personal data and exposure to unanticipated financial hardship have transformed Americans’ life chances and access to opportunities. This article examines an area where they intersect: the hardship caused by breakdowns in information systems. I focus on the case of identity theft, showing how that event—experienced by tens of millions of Americans annually—contributes to economic insecurity. To do so, I first develop a theory of insecurity that links feelings of precariousness to breaches of trust at three levels: interpersonal, organizational, and systemic. Drawing on an original qualitative study of identity theft resolution, I find that most victims worried about their financial lives because they could no longer count on certain people, organizations, or systems. Beneath this commonality, race and class informed feelings of insecurity and associated coping strategies following identity theft. Low-income people and people of color tended to direct suspicion at personal networks and report ending relationships and informal assistance. In contrast, middle- and upper-income and White individuals disproportionately blamed organizations and demanded their protection. These findings—along with the trust-based theory that helped make them visible—have important implications for the study of insecurity, inequality, and trust in the information age.
AbascalMariaBaldassarriDelia. 2015. “Love Thy Neighbor? Ethnoracial Diversity and Trust Reexamined.” American Journal of Sociology121(3):722–82.
2.
AcquistiAlessandroGrossRalph. 2009. “Predicting Social Security Numbers from Public Data.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America106(27):10975–80.
3.
AitkenRob. 2017. “‘All Data Is Credit Data’: Constituting the Unbanked.” Competition & Change21(4):274–300.
4.
AlesinaAlbertoLa FerraraEliana. 2002. “Who Trusts Others?” Journal of Public Economics85(2):207–34.
5.
AndersonKeith B.2006. “Who Are the Victims of Identity Theft? The Effect of Demographics.” Journal of Public Policy & Marketing25(2):160–71.
6.
AndersonKeith B.DurbinErikSalingerMichael A.2008. “Identity Theft.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives22(2):171–92.
7.
AuxierBrookeRainieLeeAndersonMonicaPerrinAndrewKumarMadhuTurnerErica. 2019. “Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confused and Feeling Lack of Control over Their Personal Information.” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
8.
BachmannReinhardGillespieNicolePriemRichard. 2015. “Repairing Trust in Organizations and Institutions: Toward a Conceptual Framework.” Organization Studies36(9):1123–42.
9.
BiesRobert J.TrippThomas M.1996. “Beyond Distrust: ‘Getting Even’ and the Need for Revenge.” In Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, edited by KramerR.TylerT.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
10.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 2013. Consumer Compliance Handbook: Regulation E: Electronic Fund Transfer Act. Washington, DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
11.
BoukDan. 2017. “The History and Political Economy of Personal Data over the Last Two Centuries in Three Acts.” OSIRIS32(1):1–22.
12.
BrayneSarah. 2014. “Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment.” American Sociological Review79(3):367–91.
13.
BrayneSarah. 2017. “Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing.” American Sociological Review82(5):977–1008.
14.
BrensingerJordan. N.d. “Personal Data Work: Managing Personal Information in Everyday Life.” Unpublished manuscript.
15.
BrensingerJordan. 2022. Producing Consumer “Identities”: Identity Theft and Insecurity in the Data Economy. PhD Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York.
16.
BrensingerJordanEyalGil. 2021. “The Sociology of Personal Identification.” Sociological Theory39(4):265–92.
17.
BrodtSusan E.NevilleLukas. 2013. “Repairing Trust to Preserve Balance: A Balance-Theoretic Approach to Trust Breach and Repair in Groups.” Negotiation and Conflict Management Research6(1):49–65.
18.
CalarcoJessica McCrory. 2018. Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School. New York: Oxford University Press.
19.
CooperMarianne. 2014. Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times. Berkeley: University of California Press.
20.
CopesHeithKerleyKent R.HuffRodneyKaneJohn. 2010. “Differentiating Identity Theft: An Exploratory Study of Victims Using a National Victimization Survey.” Journal of Criminal Justice38(5):1045–52.
21.
CurranDean. 2023. “Surveillance Capitalism and Systemic Digital Risk: The Imperative to Collect and Connect and the Risks of Interconnectedness.” Big Data & SocietyJanuary–June:1–12.
22.
DamaskeSarah. 2021. The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
DeLucaStefanieRosenEva. “Housing Insecurity among the Poor Today.” Annual Review of Sociology48(1):343–71.
24.
DesmondMatthew. 2012. “Disposable Ties and the Urban Poor.” American Journal of Sociology117(5):1295–335.
25.
DirksKurt T.de JongBart. 2022. “Trust within the Workplace: A Review of Two Waves of Research and a Glimpse of the Third.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior9(1):247–76.
26.
DomínguezSilviaWatkinsCeleste. 2003. “Creating Networks for Survival and Mobility: Social Capital among African-American and Latin-American Low-Income Mothers.” Social Problems50(1):111–35.
27.
DraperNora A.2019. The Identity Trade: Selling Privacy and Reputation Online. New York: New York University Press.
28.
DwyerRachel E.2018. “Credit, Debt, and Inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology44(1):237–61.
29.
EubanksVirginia. 2018. Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
30.
FourcadeMarionHealyKieran. 2017. “Seeing Like a Market.” Socio-Economic Review15(1):9–29.
31.
FullertonAndrew S.DixonJeffrey C.McCollumDestinee B.2020. “The Institutionalization of Part-Time Work: Cross-National Differences in the Relationship between Part-Time Work and Perceived Insecurity.” Social Science Research87 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2019.102402).
32.
GatesKelly. 2010. “The Securitization of Financial Identity and the Expansion of the Consumer Credit Industry.” Journal of Communication Inquiry34(4):417–31.
33.
GiddensAnthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
34.
GillespieNicoleDietzGraham. 2009. “Trust Repair after an Organization-Level Failure.” Academy of Management Review34(1):127–45.
35.
GoffmanAlice. 2014. On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
GolladayKatelynHoltfreterKristy. 2017. “The Consequences of Identity Theft Victimization: An Examination of Emotional and Physical Health Outcomes.” Victims & Offenders12(5):741–60.
37.
GreeneSara Sternberg. 2021. “Stealing (Identity) From the Poor.” Minnesota Law Review106:59–124.
38.
HackerJacob S.2008. The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: Oxford University Press.
39.
HaganJohnMcCarthyBillHerdaDanielChandrasekherAndrea Cann. 2018. “Dual-Process Theory of Racial Isolation, Legal Cynicism, and Reported Crime.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences115(28):7190–99.
40.
HaggertyKevin D.EricsonRichard V.2000. “The Surveillant Assemblage.” The British Journal of Sociology51(4):605–22.
41.
HarrellErika. 2019. “Victims of Identity Theft, 2016.” Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
42.
HartiganJohnJr.1999. Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
HeadworthSpencer. 2019. “Getting to Know You: Welfare Fraud Investigation and the Appropriation of Social Ties.” American Sociological Review84(1):171–96.
44.
HimmelsteinDavid U.ThorneDeborahWarrenElizabethWoolhandlerSteffie. 2009. “Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study.” The American Journal of Medicine122(8):741–46.
45.
HoofnagleChris Jay. 2009. “Internalizing Identity Theft.” UCLA Journal of Law and Technology13(2):1–36.
46.
HouleJason N.KeeneDanya E.2015. “Getting Sick and Falling Behind: Health and the Risk of Mortgage Default and Home Foreclosure.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health69(4):382–87.
KallebergArne L.2018. Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
49.
KearMark. 2017. “Playing the Credit Score Game: Algorithms, ‘Positive’ Data and the Personification of Financial Objects.” Economy and Society46(3–4):346–68.
50.
KimPeter H.DirksKurt T.CooperCecily D.2009. “The Repair of Trust: A Dynamic Bilateral Perspective and Multilevel Conceptualization.” The Academy of Management Review34(3):401–22.
51.
KimPeter H.FerrinDonald L.CooperCecily D.DirksKurt T.2004. “Removing the Shadow of Suspicion: The Effects of Apology versus Denial for Repairing Competence- versus Integrity-Based Trust Violations.” Journal of Applied Psychology89(1):104–18.
52.
KirchnerLaurenGoldsteinMatthew. 2020. “Access Denied: Faulty Automated Background Checks Freeze Out Renters.” The Markup and the New York Times, May28.
53.
KiviatBarbara. 2019. “The Art of Deciding with Data: Evidence from How Employers Translate Credit Reports into Hiring Decisions.” Socio-Economic Review17(2):283–309.
54.
KrippnerGreta R.2012. Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
55.
KrippnerGreta R.2017. “Democracy of Credit: Ownership and the Politics of Credit Access in Late Twentieth-Century America.” American Journal of Sociology123(1):1–47.
56.
KrippnerGreta R.2023. “Unmasked: A History of the Individualization of Risk.” Sociological Theory41(2):83–104.
57.
LagesonSarah Esther. 2020. Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
58.
LamontMichèleSwidlerAnn. 2014. “Methodological Pluralism and the Possibilities and Limits of Interviewing.” Qualitative Sociology37(2):153–71.
59.
LareauAnnette. 2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
60.
LauerJosh. 2017. Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America. New York: Columbia University Press.
61.
LewisJ. DavidWeigertAndrew. 1985. “Trust as a Social Reality.” Social Forces63(4):967–85.
62.
LuhmannNiklas. 1979. Trust and Power. London, UK: Polity.
63.
LutzChristoph. 2019. “Digital Inequalities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data.” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies1(2):141–48.
64.
MaddenMary. 2017. Privacy, Security, and Digital Inequality. New York: Data & Society.
65.
MaddenMaryGilmanMicheleLevyKarenMarwickAlice. 2017. “Privacy, Poverty, and Big Data: A Matrix of Vulnerabilities for Poor Americans.” Washington University Law Review95:53–126.
66.
MarronDonncha. 2008. “‘Alter Reality’: Governing the Risk of Identity Theft.” British Journal of Criminology48(1):20–38.
67.
MonahanTorin. 2010. Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
68.
PorterTheodore M.1996. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
69.
PosterMark. 1990. The Mode of Information: Poststructuralism and Social Context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
70.
RahnWendy M.YoonKwang SukGaretMichaelLipsonStevenLoflinKatherine. 2009. “Geographies of Trust.” American Behavioral Scientist52(12):1646–63.
71.
RainwaterLee. 2006. Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal Slum. New Brunswick, NJ: Routledge.
72.
RandaRyanReynsBradford W.2020. “The Physical and Emotional Toll of Identity Theft Victimization: A Situational and Demographic Analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey.” Deviant Behavior41(10):1290–304 .
73.
RayVictor. 2019. “A Theory of Racialized Organizations.” American Sociological Review84(1):26–53.
74.
ReynoldsDylan. 2021. “The Differential Effects of Identity Theft Victimization: How Demographics Predict Suffering Out-of-Pocket Losses.” Security Journal34:737–54.
75.
ReynsBradford W.2013. “Online Routines and Identity Theft Victimization: Further Expanding Routine Activity Theory beyond Direct-Contact Offenses.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency50(2):216–38.
76.
ReynsBradford W.HensonBilly. 2016. “The Thief with a Thousand Faces and the Victim with None: Identifying Determinants for Online Identity Theft Victimization with Routine Activity Theory.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology60(10):1119–39.
77.
RobinsonSandra L.DirksKurt T.OzcelikHakan. 2004. “Untangling the Knot of Trust and Betrayal.” In Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches, edited by KramerR. M.CookK. S.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
78.
Rona-TasAkos. 2017. “The Off-Label Use of Consumer Credit Ratings.” Historical Social Research42(1):52–76.
79.
RosenEvaGarbodenPhilip M. E.CossyleonJennifer E.2021. “Racial Discrimination in Housing: How Landlords Use Algorithms and Home Visits to Screen Tenants.” American Sociological Review86(5):787–822.
80.
RossCatherine E.MirowskyJohnPribeshShana. 2001. “Powerlessness and the Amplification of Threat: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Disorder, and Mistrust.” American Sociological Review66(4):568–91.
81.
RossLauren M.SquiresGregory D.2011. “The Personal Costs of Subprime Lending and the Foreclosure Crisis: A Matter of Trust, Insecurity, and Institutional Deception.” Social Science Quarterly92(1):140–63.
82.
SandefurRebecca L.2007. “The Importance of Doing Nothing: Everyday Problems and Responses of Inaction.” Pp. 112–32 in Transforming Lives: Law and Social Process, edited by PleasenceP.BuckA.BalmerN. J.Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.
83.
SarkisianNataliaGerstelNaomi. 2004. “Kin Support among Blacks and Whites: Race and Family Organization.” American Sociological Review69(6):812–37.
84.
SchilkeOliverReimannMartinCookKaren S.2021. “Trust in Social Relations.” Annual Review of Sociology47(1):239–59.
85.
SharpTracyShreve-NeigerAndreaFremouwWilliamKaneJohnHuttonShawn. 2004. “Exploring the Psychological and Somatic Impact of Identity Theft.” Journal of Forensic Sciences49(1):1–6.
86.
SimpsonBrentMcGrimmonTuckerIrwinKyle. 2007. “Are Blacks Really Less Trusting than Whites? Revisiting the Race and Trust Question.” Social Forces86(2):525–52.
87.
SmithSandra Susan. 2010a. Lone Pursuit: Distrust and Defensive Individualism among the Black Poor. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
88.
SmithSandra Susan. 2010b. “Race and Trust.” Annual Review of Sociology36(1):453–75.
89.
SoloveDaniel J.2002. “Identity Theft, Privacy, and the Architecture of Vulnerability.” Hastings Law Journal54:1227–76.
90.
SoloveDaniel J.2012. “Privacy Self-Management and the Consent Dilemma.” Harvard Law Review126(7):1880–903.
91.
StackCarol B.1974. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Basic Books.
92.
SykesJenniferKrižKatrinEdinKathrynHalpern-MeekinSarah. 2015. “Dignity and Dreams: What the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Means to Low-Income Families.” American Sociological Review80(2):243–67.
93.
TavoryIddoTimmermansStefan. 2014. Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ViljoenSalomé. 2021. “A Relational Theory of Data Governance.” The Yale Law Journal131(2):573–654.
99.
WesternBruceBloomeDeirdreSosnaudBenjaminTachLaura. 2012. “Economic Insecurity and Social Stratification.” Annual Review of Sociology38(1):341–59.
100.
WhitsonJennifer R.HaggertyKevin D.2008. “Identity Theft and the Care of the Virtual Self.” Economy and Society37(4):572–94.
101.
WuChi ChiBestMichaelManciniSarah Bolling. 2019. “Automated Injustice Redux: Ten Years after a Key Report, Consumers Are Still Frustrated Trying to Fix Credit Reporting Errors.” Boston, MA: National Consumer Law Center.
