Ridiculous state of affairs
It is clearly impossible to protect yourself from identity theft these days. Even if you take the most paranoid of precautions, there's always the very real risk that someone else will just hand your details to all and sundry.
What we need is a more secure system (or rather, set of systems) to identify yourself. Be it technological (like public/private keys) or more old-fashioned (pitching up in person before you can open a bank account) or something not yet invented, there is no doubt in my mind that society needs it!
But in reality, banks seem to think it's cheaper just to fix errors as they are reported, rather than create an error-resistant system. And the little guy gets an unwelcome sexual experience. As usual.