Opinion of the Court
tity has been stolen or misappropriated”). This helps explain why the examples resulting from the Government’s theory do not sound like identity theft. If a lawyer rounds up her hours from 2.9 to 3 and bills her client using his name, the name itself is not specifically a source of fraud; it only plays an ancillary role in the billing process. The same is true for the waiter who substitutes one cut of meat for another; we might say the filet mignon’s identity was stolen, perhaps, but not the diner’s.
This understanding of identity theft also supports a more targeted definition of “uses.” The word “use” appears in these definitions with a specific meaning: Identity theft encompasses when a defendant “uses the information to deceive others,” Black’s 894 (emphasis added), and “the fraudulent … use” of a means of identification, Webster’s xi (emphasis added). In other words, identity theft is committed when a defendant uses the means of identification itself to defraud or deceive. This tracks the Sixth Circuit’s heuristic. When a means of identification is used deceptively, this deception goes to “who” is involved, rather than just “how” or “when” services were provided. Use of the means of identification would therefore be at “the locus of [the criminal] undertaking,” rather than merely “passive,” “passing,” or ancillary employment in a crime. Jones, 529 U. S., at 855–856.
On top of that, §1028A’s title is not just “identity theft,” but “Aggravated identity theft.” Typically, “[a]n ‘aggravated’ offense is one ‘made worse or more serious by circumstances such as violence, the presence of a deadly weapon, or the intent to commit another crime.’ ” Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 560 U. S. 563, 574 (2010) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 75 (9th ed. 2009)). This suggests that Congress had in mind a particularly serious form of identity theft. Yet the Government’s reading “would apply an ‘aggravated’ … label” to all manner of everyday overbilling offenses. Carachuri-Rosendo, 560 U. S., at 574. “Of
