A new survey released by the Cabinet Office in Japan has revealed that an increasing number of people in the country now feel threatened by cybercrime. Among the biggest fears are cyberfraud and identity theft.
A total of 1,795 adults were polled and 40.1% of them revealed they were worried about Internet-based crime and felt vulnerable to it. This is a 21% rise from the results of a survey that was carried out in 2004. Overall, cyberspace was ranked third in the overall list of crime fears, following streets in general and also entertainment districts. Most respondents believe that the overall crime situation in Japan has worsened over the past years, and according to statistics given by Kyodo News a total of 39.3 % think that sentences handed out to criminals are too lenient.
In Japan, as in the rest of the world, cybercrime levels have been constantly rising over the past years, with year-on-year growth levels reaching 52% in 2006. The total number of cybercrimes registered in the country reached 3,161 in 2005, while the first six months of 2006 saw 1,802 cybercrime incidents logged by the National Police Agency. Opinions from Japan seem to back the results of a survey carried out in Britain last year. In that survey, produced for the UK government, cybercrime was listed as the second crime most feared by the British population, even higher than burglary or muggings.
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