The survey, taken in January but just released, points to a seven percentage-point increase in personal information theft compared with the 11 percent of respondents in July of last year who also reported the theft of their Social Security number, credit card, bank account information or comparable data.

Similarly, when looking just at the 18-to-29 age group, the percentage aware that their personal information had been stolen has risen to 15 percent, from 7 percent last year. For the 50-to-64 age group, it's 20 percent in this survey, 11 percent last year. Differences in other age groups, Pew said, were not "statistically significant."

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