Data Mobility: Risks and Rewards: The mobility of personal and financial data in today's expanding information age can come with a huge price. How can businesses better measure and manage previously unforeseen risks?

An open and inclusive consumer-driven economy, coupled with technological advances in the digital communications field, has spurred a phenomenon referred to as the "mobility of data."

It impacts everyone in the U.S. and in most industrialized nations. Data on virtually anyone is no longer contained in file cabinets located in office buildings and locked at night, but is now stored on globally connected computer systems - transmitted worldwide at a moment's notice.

Unique identifiers, such as Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers and driver's license numbers, make it possible for anyone with the right resources to know you. Depending on where you look, it's possible to learn anything associated with that unique identifier - everything from credit history to criminal records.

There's a tremendous benefit to this phenomenon. Consumers can access credit and purchase goods and services virtually on demand. Businesses can acquire new customers, sell more products, and manage resources more efficiently. The result? The U.S. economy remains the strongest in the world, having grown at a rate of 3.3% on average for the past 50 years. The risk? Fraudsters, too, have access to the same unique and persistent identifiers, and with very little effort, can become you.

So despite the economic advantages, the phenomenon has a price. The mobility of data has exposed new, previously unforeseen risks to consumers and businesses. Among the newest and most urgent facing the credit-granting industry is identity risk - the chance that someone is not who he or she claims to be. We now live in a world where a person's identity is not necessarily unique, real, or 100% provable. As countless financial crime investigators have learned, it's almost effortless to create or assume a different…