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Is your bank particularly prone to identity theft? Very bad news for those of you with accounts at HSBC, WaMu or Bank of America/MBNA: Those three financial institutions have the highest rates of identity-theft incident per billion on deposit, according to a new report released by researchers at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at UC-Berkeley.

Consumerist readers are already pulling apart the stats to entertaining effect, but the presence of BofA/MBNA at the "top" of the incidents-per-month stats also given in the report doesn't much inspire confidence in that institution, whatever the roots of the problem.

So what are the roots of the problem, really? Is BofA just that irresistible to identity thieves? Does the institution have a higher profile? Does it have dumber customers? Hard to say when all banks are so secretive about the stats that could help clarify the picture. Obviously, for instance, the number of depositors would be a better metric than billions on deposit in ascertaining which institutions are having the biggest ID-theft misery. But banks guard that info as zealously as you wish they were guarding your personal data.